'Spinal Gel Cactus' with Footstool 1Sizes:
125 x 225 x 132cm
90 x 87 x 79cm
Medium: hand molded silicon with FG base
Edition: 20 + 4 AP
'Mortal love is but the licking of honey from thorns.' So sighed an anonymous lady in the court of Eleanor of Aquitaine to her diary. Xiang Yun adapts this poignant lament to express the notion that our mortal comforts similarly come at a high price. Proof that this price is ultimately worth it, she urges, is the fact that in the end we willingly pay it, enduring hardship and toil for the sake of our comfort and ease. Yet these visually delightful forms are, at the same time, paragons of supine sumptuary, lovingly moulded in silicon gel in Xiang Yun's sylphlike hands to produce 'honey with thorns'. This armchair and ottoman set extrudes a kittenish, sacharrin sex appeal of such glistening gossamer glamour as to knock the hormones out of kilter and start the pheromones into flight like a swarm of aroused bees. Its lopsidedness imparts an arch, quizzical expression. Its frankly lubricious, pink lusciousness leers alluringly, while its quivering spines bristle their warning.
But it's all just a big, puffed bluff. 'I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!' Shelley wailed. Onto these thorns of life, however, we may fall with impunity, since they have been gently trained to yield demurely and tenderly. They add a hint of visual piquancy and tartness to the otherwise all-enveloping, cloud-like softness of this unparalleled design, which invites repose with sugary guile and a barbed smile. So set yourself; but don't fret yourself or repine, should you recline on a spine, for each of these thorns merely adorns.
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