Interlinked Mints
Polo mints, wood, acrylic. 2026. 17 x 3.5 x 6cm
My work on show in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2026.
A sculpture composed of a sequence of Polo mints on a wooden base.
The Polo mints are arranged in pairs, with the two mints in each pair interlocked, with each mint passing through the hole in the other.
The mints are real Polo mints.
Polo mints are very sculptural in their own right, especially with the excellent typography of the word Polo in relief on them. The mints were originally produced in 1948 by Rowntree in the UK and were based on the design of the US confectionary Life Savers (which Rowntree previously produced in the UK under license).
The use of confectionary or other types of food in contemporary art is often a comment on consumerism. I don’t think that that applies in this case. Here I think that the prime subject of the work in the transformation on the confectionary into a sculptural form.
The interconnected mints may be interpreted in a number of ways.
A single pair of interlinked mints can be thought of as having romantic connotations. They can be seen as being similar to a pair of interlocked wedding rings (the romantic connotations of the mints came to me before I realised that the same is sometimes done with wedding rings).
The linked mints also suggest to me some sort of machine, with the vertical mints possibly being wheels. They also have the suggestion of interconnected cogs or machine parts, which reinforces the machine connection.