Lump

A raw fragment of Whitby jet was scanned and the image enlarged and printed onto fabric. The disproportion of scale transforms a minimal object into a softer but more ambiguous presence. Its material weight is translated into a thin, semi-translucent surface through which light passes, allowing veins, fractures and irregularities to appear as shifting tonal fields. The enlarged image allows the small geological fragment to operate as a surface to be read rather than as an object to be held.

The title names the formless and the abstract, but also suggests a potentially unsettling presence—something unknown or unwanted, like an ambiguous finding within the body. The work situates the raw fragment before any further transformation, lingering instead on its unresolved state and on an attachment to the formless.

This work forms part of Dark Holding, a broader investigation into Whitby jet as a drawing material, exploring ways of working with a substance traditionally associated with carving and ornament rather than with drawing.