THE FLIBBERTIGIBBET, 2017 | drawing on paper
The word Flibbertigibbet may originate from ‘fly by the gibbet’; a gibbet being a medieval scaffolding cage where the bodies of executed criminals were left to rot. Seemingly gibberish, Flibbertigibbet also has the inferred meaning of someone flighty or gossipy. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Edgar uses Flibbertigibbet to describe a foul demon or imp. Here, a fly and a human are merged, their anatomies grotesquely crystallised in a new kind of being.
PAUL HAZELTON 