My artwork mostly consists of the stuff that finds its way into our lives-uninvited, unnoticed, and often unresolved. Some of it is physical, some spiritual, and some sits in that murky space between memory and matter. Living with Detritus has taken over sixty-five years to come together. It’s my latest attempt to reckon with the things we carry-some of them handed down, others picked up along the way, all of them hanging around longer than we expected.

The work in this exhibition are made from recycled and discarded materials-objects worn by time, touched by use, left to the elements. Shaped with the help of my own spiritual and psychological baggage, they speak to the mess of a life lived: some parts good, some bad, some neither here nor there. At the centre of it all are pieces from a life-size chess set, sculpted from horns, scrap, and forgotten wood – a slow game played with pieces made from what we throw away. Surrounding it are a mix and match of wall sculptures and photos made up of large and small easily missed details, Cracked bones, the porcelain faces of dolls, feathers, the still bodies of flies and spiders – fragments of quiet, of death, of strange beauty.

My hope is that somewhere in the junk, in the weight and the wonder of it all, you find something that sticks. Maybe it’s interesting. Maybe it’s entertaining. Maybe – God forbid – it even makes you think.

Joseph Emilien,  2025