The monstrance is an artifact. In this regard for the remnant object, Bradley Borthwick works with elementary materials as the means to develop a sensitivity to objects that have for many of us withered in our alienation from the production of everyday objects, a loss he believes symptomatic of the transient plenitude of consumer goods. To better understand pre-industrial ways of making, Borthwick constructs his works using primary materials: wood, bronze, beeswax, and leather. He is interested in the constructed object’s potential to refer to a shared pre-industrial past.

The placement of beeswax spheres together with the ongoing lengths of leather harnessing does not refer to any one monstrance precedent, but rather universalizes such built heritage within the non-denomination, Euclidean space of a warehouse gallery. The sphere is archaic, blunt, and simply chosen to formalize the material affect of the beeswax. The leather harnessing is much more desperate in its double-stitching, its intended rigor, and its reliance upon these spheres for any sense of composition or traction.

Together, the beeswax and the leather present a narrative in material interdependence that may become metaphor for the spiritual roots of the monstrance. Beyond the installation, the monstrance is afforded some reprieve by sharing its space with a sideboard that accommodates five châsse pieces. These châsses each house beeswax as a measure to ensure material reverence, given plausible degradation of the monstrance as a whole over time.
-Bradley Borthwick

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