Francis Upritchard

Francis Upritchard, in a 2003 exhibition at Ivan Anthony Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand, has created models of animal, bird and human heads.

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The body of work is as part of her investigation into museological dealings with objects of death and the preservation of such objects. As readers of Gould’s Book of Fish, by Australian author Richard Gould, will know, the nineteenth century practice of collecting preserved, indigenous human heads for ‘scientific’ purposes can go horribly wrong, leading to misinterpretations and confusion. Upritchard’s disembodied heads continue such a sense of mishap as she brings her constructed shrunken Pakeha heads to Auckland from her base in London. Her gesture reads as a ‘returning’ of disputed artefacts, in effect, but the mix-up of history, mischief and meaning is a potent mixture.

Art News New Zealand, Summer 2003, Sue Gardiner.