Dismantle (2025), is a new body of sculptural work and drawings from West Australian visual artist, Jess Day.  

The sculptural work combines the ‘value’ found materially in Jarrah wood, old floorboards, oils, waxes, plants, trophy or ‘mantlepiece worthy’ objects, framed images, and metals like silver and brass; with more structural home building materials, such as pine, wood screws, cornice adhesive and glass. These sculptural works include shelves made from recycled firewood, silver encased sticks, and cornice adhesive candlesticks amongst others.

The sculptural forms fuse a sense of calculated worth with a DIY, make-do methodology in which errors were reconfigured into ‘features’ or aspects of the sculptural work.  The work is based on my living room. This room, like many rental properties, has various unusable fixtures, rails, old cables, curtain beaded lines, and mispatched wallpaper. The homeowner’s approach of ‘making good’ has become a feature of the home and inspired an approach to making in which the work could evidence a series of surfaces built up over time as it has been repaired, used, and maintained.

The outcome has been a lot of time spent drawing, making, writing and ruminating in a salmon pink living room patched with various tones of pink; melting wax, collecting sticks, feeding and preparing fires, cleaning ash from tiles, and creating drawings that document these processes in a layered fashion similar inspired by the temporary patterns cast by the fireplace.

The outcomes of this exhibition are a series of fragmented works that embody the time, attention and interest that can be found in learning about home maintenance. These outcomes are presented as a series of portable sculptures which may or may not provide some practical use in addition to pure form.

Jess Day lives and works in Boorloo (Perth, WA).

Image: Planting Poster, detail. 2025. H 30 x W 30x D 2cm.MDF, glass, silver, acrylic, gesso, diffusion film, coloured pencil, graphite. Image courtesy of the artist.

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