Scarring the Wound

The sculptor Cathy de Monchaux trained as an artist in her native city of London, before becoming a fixture on the young British art scene of the 1990s. Scarring the Wounds was shown at the group exhibition “IN SITE: New British Sculpture” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1993. The sculpture consists of flat, undulating, and partially overlapping brass curves that emanate from the centre and outwards in eleven rows. The curves are screwed to the centre in a roughly heart-shaped manner. Red velvet can be glimpsed in between the wavering rows, and the entire arrangement is held together by ribbons of black silk that have been threaded through holes in the metal and fastened as small bows to the outer rim. Ribbons of the same black silk also hang down from the underside. While the sensuous, red velvet is gently folded in almost organic form, the hard, shiny brass elements are more reminiscent of machinery parts, underlining the dissimilar nature of the materials.

The sculpture has been designed to hang on a wall, and as a whole it can be seen as a sort of baroque rosette. The combination of red velvet, black silk, and metal can be associated with something erotic or even fetishistic. From a distance the sculpture can also bring to mind an American Indian dream catcher. All of this makes the work highly symbolic. The contrasting materials create a sense of tension and allow the work to be interpreted in a variety of ways. The titles of Monchaux’s sculptures commonly allude to experiences of a personal or vulnerable nature, often in regard to relations between men and women.