Polish (2022) is an allegorical exploration of masculinity, informed by the artist’s personal and academic experiences. In this sculptural installation, Joel Secter critiques his specific experiences of masculinity by reshaping and altering collected items, such as lapel pins, and assigned them new roles. Through materials procured from marketplaces such as Kijiji and Facebook, Secter plays with how found objects and various media can intersect, ultimately forming new objects with reshaped identities.
Heavy with irony, Polish began as a collection of vintage hockey lapel pins that Secter painted with white nail polish in response to a fellow artist’s assertion that “anything painted is a painting.” At first a satirical response to this statement, Polish evolved into a three-0part sculptural installation that meditates on the harmful consequences of processes of refinement. Even in the aftermath of refinement, or reshaping, for example, the sculptures in Little Pricks resist identification despite their assigned title, leaving artwork characterized by its malleability and an openness to interpretation. Here, the artist proposes that viewers consider “why men are the way they appear and what would they be like if left like precious gems as they are found.”
