Milk Bottle Sculpture 15 2009

Joe Goode made Milk Bottle Sculpture 15, with what looks like plaster. It has got this pearly colour and it has been built up really thickly. I’m thinking about the artist, Joe Goode, and what he must have been thinking while he was building up these layers. It’s like he was in this dance with the sculpture, right? Adding layer upon layer, letting the material take over. I can imagine him stepping back, squinting, then diving back in, building up this crusty, drippy surface. The colour has this ghostly, mother-of-pearl quality to it, too, like the bottle is haunted, or maybe just remembering its past life on a dairy farm. These milk bottle sculptures have something in common with the work of Vija Celmins, who also made everyday objects strange by turning them into art. Ultimately, I love the way the object carries itself with such dignity and ambiguity, as if it were born into a new life.