Still Weighted is part of the Drifting Remains sub-collection within Fragmented Harmony. This series explores the quiet violence of marine detritus—objects designed for extraction and control—juxtaposed with organic materials shaped by water, time, and environmental erosion.

A lead fishing weight anchors the sculpture. Its surface bears corrosion, salt residue, and industrial memory. Rising from it, a system of bent metal wires and a marine hook suspend a small piece of ocean-worn wood, gently ribboned in strips of gold leaf. The wood floats—not freely, but within a subtle structure of constraint.

This piece forms a conceptual dialogue with The Black Bait (2024), sharing its concern with marine ecologies, aesthetic contradiction, and the symbolic burden of human excess. But where The Black Bait staged an active entrapment—a metaphorical lure—Still Weighted offers a quieter meditation on balance, fragility, and the illusion of release.

The wire and hook, normally associated with force and violence, are transformed here into instruments of levitation. Yet the tension remains: the wood is not liberated. It is suspended by the very materials that threaten its world.

The application of gold leaf introduces a layer of visual seduction, echoing traditions of sacred repair while simultaneously calling attention to the object’s precarious condition. The gold does not conceal damage—it highlights it, asking the viewer to see beauty in survival, but also to recognize the forces that make survival necessary.

Still Weighted becomes a sculptural rendering of ecological memory—anchored in harm, held in tension, and glimmering with the contradictory aesthetics of care and collapse. As with other works in the Drifting Remains sub-collection, Still Weighted reflects on the ecological consequences of human activity—particularly the presence of synthetic and industrial materials in marine environments. The piece critiques how tools designed for sport and extraction remain long after their function, haunting the ecosystems they were never meant to enter.

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