Untitled (a draft of Brownie Guide totalitarianism)

Sculptural installation 

This installation is composed of three drawings made using various red pencils and pens (red work, 2023), a series of terracotta clay sculptures that are combined with found objects (Anne, Alice, Buster, Eppie, June, Jean-Bennet, Jennifer, Malala, Mica, Mini et al or Various Girls, 2024), and a cardboard and timber house (Wendy house after the Unabomber, after Walden, 2024.)

The house is built to the same proportions as Henry David Thereau’s cabin in Walden which Theodore Kaczyski modelled his home after. The scaled down proportions invite you to not only look but experience the house.  

Middleton’s clay figures resemble golems, anthropomorphic beings from Jewish folklore that are made from inanimate material (often dust or mud) and are brought to life through incantation. They also draw from Middleton’s interest in Henry Darger’s unfinished work “Realms of the Unreal”, particularly the army of children he names The Vivian Girls. Darger’s story is reminiscent of the biblical stories of war and the stories of Catholic martyrs. 

In bringing these elements together Middleton investigates the spaces in which complex inner worlds evolve, flourish and ferment. Using a methodology of play this space to explore their own fictive world, where the viewer may only peer in. 

Middleton Maddocks an artist working through various mediums.  Middleton’s work is concerned with mapping; language—its failures and tricks—; nonsense making; theatre as a space & performance as a mode for living; autofiction; and personal symbolic histories. Off-beat and out of tune are considered important & technical homes in the creative, neurologically diverse landscape Middleton inhabits.

Middleton completed their BA at Goldsmiths in 2023.