Created for Unravelling the Vyne at The Vyne with the National Trust, this sculptural intervention responds to the Oak Gallery’s densely carved Tudor panelling, an environment steeped in symbolism, power, and political sensitivity.

​

Commissioned by William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, the panelling celebrates status and allegiance through intricate iconography, most notably the Tudor rose of Henry VIII and the pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon. Following Henry’s divorce from Catherine, these symbols became politically fraught, reportedly concealed or obscured during his later visits to the house.

​

This moment of erasure forms the basis of the work.

​

Pomegranates are extracted from their carved origins and gathered en masse beneath the gallery rug, as if hastily hidden from view. The accumulation mirrors the frequency of Catherine’s emblem within the panelling, transforming ornament into evidence, abundance into absence.

​

At once playful and pointed, the intervention reflects on power, rejection, and the rewriting of history. It gestures toward Catherine’s repeated attempts to produce a male heir, six pregnancies that ultimately failed to secure her position, while exposing the mechanisms through which visibility, legacy, and identity are controlled.

​

A quiet act of removal becomes a loaded gesture of loss.