Artist : Jonathan Michael Ray
Title : Pulvis et Umbra Sumas (We Are But Dust and Shadow)
Medium : found glass bottles, fossil, coin, thimble, stereoscopic image, slate, glass, steel
Dimensions : 35 x 20 x 45 cm


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This work is one of a series of ‘memento mori’ assemblages. The titles are taken from sun dial mottos. This one translates as ‘we are but dust and shadow’. The objects on the shelf, are collected from landscape and antique shops in the South West of England. Included are antique bottles (possibly scientific or pharmaceutical), a fossilised oyster shell known as a devil’s toe nail, a thimble and coin / token (found by metal detecting), and a stereoscopic image of an ambiguous ‘dig’. The slate shelf is part of a reclaimed Cornish flagstone.