Queen Anne Ceiling Rose. 2.5 meter diameter.. Cassini plaster. 

Exhibited at Fresh Air Scupture June 2026.

Image courtesy of Steve Russel Studios

Artist Statement

Above dining tables, hallways and drawing rooms ceiling roses are traditionally associated with ornament. Queen Anne Ceiling Rose manipulates this emotional familiarity to confront the viewer with hidden histories embedded within architecture itself. This recognisable architectural feature is destabilised from something deeply nostalgic into something unsettling and politically charged. Intricate radial patterns seduce the viewer through their beauty and symmetry, before revealing a darker narrative. The work appropriates the aesthetic language of decorative plasterwork whilst embedding within it cast metaphorical and representative objects associated with the transatlantic slave trade.

Research

This work examines the architectural legacy of Britain's involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, considering how histories of wealth, power and violence remain embedded within the built environment. Many buildings in Britain are connected, directly or indirectly, to the profits of slavery. The South Sea Company held the British Asiento contract, granting it the right to supply enslaved Africans to Spanish America. The immense wealth generated through this trade extended into the British monarchy, with Queen Anne allocated shares in the company, and her successor, George I, inheriting and expanding these investments.

Architectural ornament becomes a site of historical enquiry. Bones, grenades and the contemporary digital shorthand of aubergine and peach emojis allude to the physical and sexual violence inflicted upon enslaved people. During the World Wars, hand grenades were commonly nicknamed pineapples because of their segmented form. The pineapple, meanwhile, had long been a celebrated architectural motif in Georgian and Victorian interiors, where it symbolised wealth, hospitality and imperial prosperity. Here, the slippage between grenade and pineapple collapses the language of ornament and violence, exposing the brutality that underpinned colonial wealth.

Objects associated with the consumption of sugar and tobacco—including sugar bowls, tongs, spoons, tobacco jars, clay pipes and eighteenth-century coins—reference the triangular trade that sustained Britain's colonial economy. Returning ships carried sugar and tobacco cultivated through forced labour on Caribbean plantations, transforming commodities produced through enslavement into symbols of refinement and domestic status.

Chess pawns evoke the denial of agency experienced by enslaved people. Their differing scales, combined with the presence of scissors, refer to the systematic separation of families, a deliberate tactic used to control enslaved populations. The objects are arranged within a repeating fleur-de-lis motif, centred on a queen chess piece that reflects on monarchy, British colonialism and the enduring structures of imperial power.

By reconfiguring these symbolic objects as an architectural ornament, the work reveals the disquieting relationship between decoration and violence. It asks how the material legacy of slavery continues to inhabit the spaces we preserve and celebrate, exposing histories embedded within Britain's architecture while acknowledging the enduring legacy of suffering, displacement and inequality left by the transatlantic slave trade.

Queen Anne Ceiling Rose, Detail. 2026.

Wall mounterd tryptic . 135cm H x 90cm W

Exhibited at Assemlbly, Moving gallery and Abject gallery Sunderalnd, 12th june - 25th July

Studio research to see how the objects could fit together. resulted in the development of smaller wall mounted works.

The sugar implements lead to a new work called One Lump or Two?

There is no place like home and in Britain, the ritual of making tea is a gesture of comfort, care, and hospitality. The familiar question, "One lump or two?", evokes warmth, companionship, and the simple solace of a hot sweet cup of tea. Using Georgian sugar bowls, sugar tongs and sugar spoons One Lump or Two? examines the hidden histories within this soothing tradition. The sweetness of tea and the sugar industry, was made possible by the exploitation of enslaved people on Caribbean sugar plantations, revealing a horrible irony that the comforts of home can quietly contain the darker legacies of empire.

Black velvet was a derogatory term often used by white male settlers to describe indigenous women. Enslaved people on the plantations were provided clothes of coarse cloth. The plantation owners used fine, European fabrics like silk, linen, and velvet imported through the triangular transatlantic trade, to display their immense wealth.

One Lump or Two ?

Cast sugar implements, mounted on black velvet.90cm h x 90cm w 2026