Bad To The Bone is a solo exhibition with two new sculptural works by Emily Jones. In the first room there is a larger than life inflatable toad sat atop an similarly oversized coin. While the toad and the coin may seem disparate, tiny frogs are often photographed on top of coins in order to show their exact size. The coin is a common object that we collectively agree upon as having a certain size (and value) and hence it serves as a reliable reference, a fixed truth verifying the size of often unbelievably small animals. In many instances both frogs and toads are thought to bring good fortune, as is the case with the ‘Jin Chan’ or “money toad,” a popular feng shui charm where a toad sitting on a pile of coins is thought to bring luck and prosperity. Scale is a recurrent theme in the artist’s work and in this case the size of the coin and toad duo borders on monumental.
In the second room there is a functional wheel of fortune positioned atop a bright red carpet. The wheel’s proportions and twenty four distinct slices have been modeled as an approximation of the wheel used on “Wheel of Fortune,” a popular television game show in the United States which has been on the air in some form since 1975. The format of the wheel is said to be a mixture of two common casino games: the ‘Big Six’ which is usually positioned vertically and contains various segments and the pins around its border, and the classic Roulette table, where the circular table is spun in one direction and a small ball in the other, eventually stopping on a particular value. Jones chose not to include the dollar sign symbol on the wheel as to allow the numbers to be less tethered to a specific place and currency. While there are no prizes in this version of the wheel of fortune, visitors are still encouraged to take a risk, spin the wheel and to test their chances.
