Christopher Madden

oppression

  • Art about oppression – contemporary political sculpture

    contemporary art about political oppression and dictatorship

    The Oppressor Empaled. A sculpture about oppression.

    Hammer, nails, wood. 18x34x26cm. May 2023.

    This sculpture was shown in the ING Discerning Eye exhibition in the Mall Galleries, London, November 2024. It is a work of political art, in the form of a metaphor for oppression and rebellion.
    The work shows a hammer empaled by nails.
    Part of the concept behind the sculpture is that the hammer is being impaled by the objects that it normally hits – the nails. The hammer is a symbol of oppression and dictatorship and the nails are symbols of the oppressed.
    But the sculpture poses a question – how did the nails manage to drive themselves into the hammer? Nails by their nature need a hammer, or a stand-in for a hammer, in order to be effective and to fulfil their purpose. Were the nails hammered into the hammer by another hammer? In that case the nails are not a metaphor for the oppressed rising up against their oppressor (the hammer) using their own power, but are more like the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer that they’ve empaled.

    The leaders of liberation movements against repression often become oppressors or dictators in their turn.

    This sculpture is a development of an idea that I had in 2010 when it started life as a drawing of a hammer with three nails driven into it.
    Since then it developed into a 3D sculptural work composed of a hammer nailed directly onto a flat surface as though pinned down.
    The iteration here has the hammer suspended above a surface and with many more nails driven into it so that it’s starting to resemble a nail fetish figure.

    contemporary art about oppression - hammer sculpture
    political art - sculpture about oppression

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  • Hammers – photomontage for sculpture in the environment, Cornwall

    Contemporary sculpture in the landscape Cornwall - hammers

    Hammers: sculpture in the landscape

    Photomontage visualisation. Cornwall. June 2018

    A visualisation of a concept for a sculpture in the landscape.
    The landscape in the photograph is the Penwith peninsula in west Cornwall.
    The hammers are meant to project a sense of overbearing force, the fact that there are several of them possibly implying organised force (such as military force). Hammers, to me, have a certain anthropomorphic quality to them, suggesting a degree of human identity – a long thin body with a head at the top. The blank facelessness of the heads of the hammers in this image suggest a mindless power (I’ve done other works in which hammers have faces).

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  • Hammer and nails sculpture – a study of oppression and rebellion

    Political contemporary art about oppression and rebellion using hammer and nails

    The Oppressor Impaled by the Oppressed. Hammer and nails sculpture

    Hammer, nails, plank. June 2015.

    A sculpture composed of a hammer nailed to a plank of wood.
    The hammer is being empaled by the objects that it normally hits.
    This can be interpreted as a metaphor for oppression and rebellion, and it’s also a study in irony.
    How did the nails come to be impaling the hammer? Were the nails hammered into place by another hammer? In this case the nails may not be the downtrodden oppressed rising up to overthrow their oppressor using their own power, but are possibly the followers of another power (another hammer?) that may turn out to be as oppressive as the hammer they’ve empaled.

    Other versions of this piece have the hammer on a horizontal surface, such as on the top of a plinth, while further iterations use different numbers of nails. The vertical version shown here is in some ways disturbing because the vertical configuration gives more of an impression of the hammer being violently empaled rather than simply nailed down to the spot. It is also disturbingly suggestive of a crucifixion in Christian iconography.

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