“It’s not really quite clear where these things come from or where they fit in. It’s rather like the way we remake our personal histories according to our distorted memories.” – Francis Upritchard[1]

These three works are representative of Upritchard’s practice of 2005. It was an exhibition made during this period, the tentatively titled Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed, first exhibited at Auckland’s Artspace, for which she won the prestigious Walters Prize. Prior to this, Upritchard had also been a 2003 nominee for the Beck’s Futures award which is based in the United Kingdom. In 2009, Upritchard was bestowed the further honour of being selected to represent New Zealand at the 2009 Venice Biennale, where she mounted the exhibition Save Yourself at the Fondazione Claudio Buziol. In addition to her extensive international exhibition history, she has held residencies at: the Govett Brewster, New Plymouth; Artspace, Sydney; Camden Arts Centre, London; and Belem Contemporary Art Flux, Belem, Brazil.

While in recent years Upritchard’s work has come to be made predominantly from hand-formed modelling materials, during this early period she was actively engaged with making works from both found objects and organic materials. While the works are constructed from modern refuse, they present themselves as relics from another time. Untitled (bat) and Untitled (baboon), particularly, ascribe new meaning to previously defunct objects. They seek to question the reasons why human beings ascribe meaning to matter. Irrespective of whether commodity fetishism is motivated by superstition, monetary value or deeply imbedded cultural practice, these works highlight the invisible structures that perpetuate it. Further, it could be said that by breathing new significance into previously valueless objects, Upritchard, in turn, seeks to advance the process further and influence the production of cultural capital. The veritable influence of Uprichard’s hand prompts us to find new beauty in the gentle, speckled gradient of Untitled (baboon), that would otherwise be framed by the swift and dismissive movements of fashion, and a new symbolic significance in the form of Untitled (bat), which previously would have been defined only by its use-value.

Brown Sloth Creature is substantially similar to the light-coloured sloth that was exhibited in Doomed, Doomed, All Doomed and the two works are illustrated alongside one another in Upritchard’s first major publication, Human Problems (2006). The sloth’s starved hollow form is made from real fur, laid over a sculptural material that allows it to remain malleable. Its hands are made from human gloves, over which the sloth wears rings made by contemporary jeweller Karl Fritsch, with whom Upritchard is a frequent collaborator and co-exhibiter. Of his work, Upritchard has said: “It’s like inverse alchemy. He uses precious materials and turns them into childish rough objects that look like they’ve come out of a candy machine. They are so immediate you can see the fingerprints.”[2] Much like Upritchard’s own objects, Fritsch’s jewellery revaluates the traditional means by which objects are endowed value. While they are made using precious materials, the human touch is of the greatest significance.

The sloth’s dimensions, from the tip of the finger to the end of the toe, are comparable with those of the human body and, as such, its spatial presence spurs the viewer to evaluate their own physical capacity. Its elongated reach endows that work with a presence that misrepresents the true mass of its lean stature; the generous expanse of space surrounding the work acts almost like a halo, as if to suggest that this inanimate body has significance far greater than its own physical presence. Upritchard has noted that she has in fact never seen a real sloth, and explains: “I think of it more as a costume than an animal”.[3] The rigor mortis of its protruding limbs and almost otherworldly presence, suggest that it is adopting the position of a fallen species and that Upritchard may be challenging her audience to reconsider the way in which they navigate the world. Its haunting presence seeks to address the destructive effect of colonial imperialism on both cultural diversity and the natural world.

Charles Ninow