of forged steel construction and with gilded horns and wood and brass mounts
208 x 115 x 60cm

With eight unblinking eyes and six meticulously embellished palms directed towards the viewer, Katie Surridge’s bricolage ‘Wishing Chair’ is both fascinating and fearsome – one could imagine that the object has been transplanted from an ancient and faraway civilisation, its uses and meanings arcane and impenetrable. Upon closer inspection, however, the object slowly reveals itself through a series of auspicious and protective totems rooted in deep reservoirs of tradition across cultures and centuries.

Perhaps the most familiar talismans include the small wishing well placed beneath the seat of the chair, the suspended horseshoe, or the eye-shaped nazar and the hand of Fatima amulets used for protection against the evil-eye. More obscure totems include the gilded horns, which derive from the Magdalenian culture that flourished in France and Spain towards the end of the last Ice Age but are still used today as a protective emblem in some Mediterranean and African cultures. Likewise, the mirror placed between the nazars may reference either Western superstitions or the so-called ‘fetish’ figures of west-central Africa which commonly utilised mirrors both as a means to frighten evil spirits away and also to symbolise the object’s ability to see and understand the human world. One may also imagine the intricate etchings on the brass plaques and the seat to be the apotropaic cyphers of a lost society.

Inextricably bound to both with mythology and materiality, Surridge’s ‘Wishing Chair’ is executed in hand-forged steel and is joined using traditional tenons and rivets, heightening the already potent sense of intrigue and authenticity.