An ongoing project entitled ‘pocket sculptures’ involves a process of gathering small items of waste material (tiny bits and bobs, which other people have discarded) on routine walks. These are then taken back to the studio where they are assembled/modeled/arranged through an intuitive and improvised process. They are then staged to be captured as a photograph.

'Kefford has crafted pieces which, up close, are sturdy and substantial in spite of the delicate and intricate nature of the materials he works with. Ordinarily flimsy and paltry pieces of plastic, string, and wire seemed to balance precariously but deliberately upon each other, giving a pleasing sense of improvisation and incidental invention. Many seemed to provoke narratives. One piece in particular hosted a slab of polystyrene laid on its side, with a red-wire and ribbon-formed figure leaning against it. On the other side, pressing back against the push of the figure was a red ball of screwed-up plastic. The pieces were positioned as such to emphasise the forces working from both sides of the polystyrene, which seemed to represent a large rock. The small red figure was dwarfed against the polystyrene, pushing against it with futility, in a surprisingly powerful scene of endurance. Here and elsewhere, the power and endurance these objects seem to perform lends the sculptures a likeness to the body. This is an effect embodied also in the fact of the material itself: as objects discarded by humans. The confrontation with our own waste here teases out the neglectful and depreciative relationships between us and the material we discard, and Kefford does so thoughtfully, without overstatement.'

- Sarah Wilson

David Kefford

David Kefford