'Reflections of Resistance III' is a unique sculpture by the British artist, Chris Day, created from handblown & sculpted glass with micro bore copper pipe, recycled electrical wire, reclaimed pine and cowhide.

The artwork explained by Dr Emma Park:

Reflections of Resistance is a group of three sculptures inspired by images of African shields, particularly those once made by tribes in Nigeria and by the Zulus. Their pinewood backing and cowhide covering at the base reflect materials that were used in traditional shield-making, which in turn are set in dynamic contrast with the industrial copper wire and blown glass characteristic of Day’s wider oeuvre. 

A shield made from a fragile material like glass would be useless as a means of defence – but that is the point. On one level, these sculptures, like many of Day’s earlier works, allude to specific stories from the history of the conflicts between European colonialists and Africans, which he argues are still insufficiently well-known by ‘normal people’ in the UK. The shields recall both the punitive Benin Expedition undertaken by British troops in 1897, which ultimately resulted in the absorption of Benin into the former colony of Nigeria, and the Battle of Isandlwana in Southern Africa in 1879, in which invading British troops were massacred by Zulu warriors. In both cases, Day observes, the Africans ‘faced Gatling guns and ammunition, and they had nothing but shields and spears’ – despite which they displayed great ‘resilience and resistance’. The latter qualities are evoked in the shield sculptures by the way that the glass tries to ‘break through and free itself’ from the copper cage confining it, even though it is always at risk of being shattered as it cools. 

On a more personal level, the shields also allude to the protection mechanisms that Day surrounded himself with, growing up in Britain in the 1970s and ‘80s, at a time when being mixed race was strongly stigmatised. Rather than admit the truth – that his absent father was a Jamaican who had been rejected by his Anglo-Irish mother’s family – for years Day told people that he was dead. ‘I denied who I was to try and fit in,’ he remembers. ‘I wish I could have been stronger and fought it. But I wasn’t.’ Only recently has he been able to acknowledge and celebrate his paternal heritage in works like Reflections. For him, ‘the shield represents a defence, but with the defence mechanism taken away, because it’s a glass shield’: in other words, it symbolises his act of shaking off past inhibitions. The glass pushing through the copper cage further embodies his internal struggle to break free of the taboos under whose shadow he has lived for so many years. 

The artist can also create pieces to commission, please contact the gallery for further information.