Joe Brittain
Landfill

A tall, totemic form made from a thick raw, antique beam of wood, sectioned and then combined back together using simple joints. At the joints, shelves are formed and on them sit three glass globes, each filled with different materials, one black sand, one ground grey slate, and the last one powdered white salt. The materials reference the industrial materiality of the artist’s childhome home, where salt mines and gravel pits dotted his home county. There, he often played and searched for fossils. It is where his love of Geology began.

The work is also a reference to the first piece Brittain was ever paid for making – a commission from the local landfill to make a large scale drawings showing a section view of the different layers of earth in that landfill.

Untitled (Landfill), 2018, Wood, hand blown glass, salt, ground slate, black sand

Untitled (Landfill), 2018, Wood, hand blown glass, salt, ground slate, black sand