‘Salty’ earring from the ‘salty and boyant’ pair. Photographed on a beautiful ‘cuore di bua’ tomato by @chris.rhodes Tomatoes were so precious when they were first brought from the americas to Europe that they were shown in cabinets. “The still life's objects [...] may serve as catalysts for the transgression and subversion of their own inner logic, identity, and meaning, through the re-creation and reordering of familiar yet uncannily strange everyday objects in the real world. [...] In obliging us to look differently at what we took for granted, they force us to look at the overlooked, transformed and regenerated into an autonomous symbolic system of transcendent meaning, an object of desire.” Margit Rowell, 1997. ‘The combination of Joy’s jewels with Chris’s photography both calls into question, and continues a centuries-long tradition of still life. Though one could make a case for still life predating the notion of art itself, the term gained prominence amongst Dutch painters in the 16th century. Whether it takes the form of technical studies, or questions the meaning of art, still life depicts objects and in doing so generates another object entirely – the image of the object. That is, the object itself is not the still life, the image, be it painting, drawing or photograph, is the still life. Through conscious choices in composition, lighting, and perspective, or even just through the act of depiction, still life encourages new ways of looking for its makers and for its viewers’. Elena Cinelli, 2021.