To accompany the exhibition Tourist Smoking Room, Transition Gallery, London.
There is no greater love amongst elephants than the maternal kind. The female elephant gently guides and protects its young, touching it with trunk and legs: something so big caring for something so small. David Webb’s mother made him a toy elephant when he was a boy. The beloved maternal gift, or the blobby grey memory of it, informs Webb’s painting Pachyderm. Its edges, blurred and tentative, like a frayed childhood memento; its shape has transmuted to include memories of other childhood toys.
Read the full essay at the Transition Gallery website