Water and Spout
Patinated bronze sculpture, 25.5 x 20 x 17 cm
2025




This work takes the form of a fish-shaped downspout. The mouth of the fish is agape, but instead of releasing water, it holds the head of a human figure. Inside the human’s mouth is the tail of a fish. The form references a faience handle from Egypt’s New Kingdom, under Rameses II, which depicts a lion with its jaws clamped around the head of a Nubian figure. Allegorical imagery was used to depict surrounding tribes as destabilising threats to Egyptian order, casting them as mythical enemies in the empire’s visual lexicon.

Traditionally, the downspout channels water through the lips of the fish, suggesting not just a mechanical function, but a kind of bodily passage. In medieval Europe, gargoyles served as rain spouts, often taking on mythical or bestial forms. Today, fish-shaped spouts survive in kitsch Americana, mass-produced in plastic. ‘Water and Spout’ explores allegory as a persistent and mutable language, where objects mediate histories of dominance, protection, and transformation.