Stripped of colour, Witness is no delicate daisy but an oversized heft of weighty droop, which has undergone physical mastication before the white powder coating is allowed to bubble and settle in the crevices.

Jesse Pollock’s previous works have been exploring Arcadian visions through pastoral ideals with a dystopian undertone, examining patriotism and national identity with conflicted awareness that manifests as bucolic convention, juxtaposed with a distorted and contested reality. Using the countryside as a metaphor about human existence or construction and infected with nostalgia, Pollock believes that once a flower has been picked its life span is forced to speed up, as humans take over the control of something beautiful to satisfy desire. He thinks of flowers as spectators of the countryside, always there watching and wilting with disapproval, as we pick flowers to put in our homes, in our hair. Applying his teeth to the material, Pollock is making a strong statement about the worst thing a human being can do to another living thing.

The flowers are made from sand-casted aluminium sections welded together. The original iteration of the work is made from air dry and epoxy clay, which is then bitten by the artist. By casting one piece multiple times, the artist shows how a single action can become something more.

Jesse Pollock (b.1993, Gillingham, Kent, England) studied BA Illustration, Camberwell College of Arts and BTEC Diploma, University of Creative Arts. Recent exhibitions include: State of Play, Brooke Benington & Canary Wharf (2022); Sculpture in the City, London (2022); Dream Weavers, Grove Collective, London (2022); Pink Gallery, Superzoom, Miami (2021); Sit Right Here And Watch The World Burn, Selfridges, London (2021); Arcadia, Bold Tendencies, London (2021); Nourishment ii, VO Curations, London (2020); La Totale 2020, Boissy-le-Chatel, France (2020); A Land of Incomparable Beauty, Collective Ending, London (2020); Contemporary Sculpture Fulmer 2020, Brooke Bennington, Fulmer (2020); The Garden of England, Steve Turner, Los Angeles (2020); Dieu To Old England, The Kids Are Alright, Choi and Lager, Cologne (2019); Super Zoom, curated by Ferdinand Gros, Paris (2019); Power of Ten, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles (2019); Squeeze Hard Enough It Might Just Pop! Hannah Barry Gallery, London, (2018).