The fantastical artworks of Jonathan Baldock (b.1980) are infused with multiple references, from myth and folklore, to paganism and the artist’s own biography. Working across sculpture, textiles, ceramics, installation and performance, he draws attention to suppressed aspects of history previously considered taboo. His immersive and theatrical installations engage the senses, combining colour, texture, scent and sound with enigmatic characters and esoteric narratives. Traditional craft techniques such as wool spinning, plant dyeing and basket weaving are integral to his practice, referencing the forgotten contributions of British working class craftsmen and labourers throughout history. Treading a fine line between humour, camp and the uncanny, he draws on his own queer identity to explore the relationship between different materials and the human body, often incorporating casts of his own body parts into his pieces.

Baldock’s textile and ceramic flower sculptures were begun while grieving the death of a friend, an event that prompted a reflection on the brevity of life and the cyclical rhythm of nature. Finding inspiration in his mother’s garden, his eccentric anthropomorphic plants – each of which features a human face and roots that snake along the floor – engage broadly with ideas about humanity’s connection to the natural world, as reflected by the choice of materials: ceramics made from clay and textiles derived from plant fibres. Their titles are taken from the lyrics of Dolly Parton’s 1987 hit song Wildflowers.

Inspired by puppetry, Baldock’s life-size marionettes, Innermost and Outermost (2022), function as grotesque avatars of the artist. While their bodily proportions are distorted with bulbous swellings suggestive of pregnancy or huge cysts, they also feature casts of the artist’s ears, hands and feet. This and the related fabric hanging, In Your Face (2022), speak to the disjuncture between a person’s outward presentation of themselves and their internal sense of self.