<<<< marbles

I had been interested in carving a bag of fish and chips since my trip to Scalloway in 2004, here is my interpretation in Carrara marble. The conventional, very British, packaged food item struck me as being like a little coffin or tomb for the unfortunate fish.  The fish being battered, then wrapped in paper and presented more-or-less in the same way throughout the country. I thought it would be interesting to memorialise this temporary entombment in a more permanent way, in stone, to create a monument analogous to the many tomb effigies of knights-in-armour and bishops, residing in cathedrals and churches.

Formally I thought a fish and chip bag would look good carved in marble, showing the creases and folds catching the light in the same appealing way a regular paper bag does. For the final piece I also added spots of sealant to give the effect of a warm greasy interior affecting the exterior surface as usually happens with the real thing (also indicating some kind of transformation through decay or interaction of materials). There was also an element of expressing my vegetarian views in creating a memorial to an animal that has had a life, which should be considered and remembered just as we remember our own species. The title 'cenotaph' therefore describes a generic memorial to all dead fish, rather than one individual animal.