Kilner Jar Doll (2)

Medium: Dressed porcelain doll with soft body, Kilner Jar Clip, Acryilc doll eyes, Cotton Fabric, Polyester Stuffing, Chalk, Pastel.

Kilner Jar Doll (2) features a medium sized hacked doll wearing a dark red velvet dress with white fur trim and muff. It has an ivory-coloured petticoat and white lacy tights and long knickers. The shoes are felt bootees with laces. The hands and feet are porcelain; the head and body are stuffed fabric. It has dark blue acrylic doll eyes set into a ‘squint’ expression.

In this ‘hacked doll’ artwork the original ‘pretty’ head of the doll has been replaced with an ‘ugly’ uncanny head. Over the head is attached a Kilner jar clip, like a strange tiara. This artwork is one of a collection of hacked dolls with replaced heads begun in 2023.

The work plays with ideas of the uncanniness of the ‘doll’ – its features are changed to be unlike the usual rigid mask-like prettiness of ordinary manufactured dolls, so that it appears to be less ‘human’ but more ‘alive’. The Kilner jar clip is a common household object, used here in a context of the face to create a feeling of unease.

The doll can be posed sitting down.