Liminal Gallery is pleased to present Thes peces wer made by me, a two-person exhibition of sculpture and drawings by Maud Whatley and Jack Coulson. It reflects an ongoing conversation about the ways armour has been used historically and as a contemporary device to consider storytelling, identity and power. From a Byzantine gold-threaded jaw bone to a medieval family with a trio of testicles on its coat of arms, the real events behind the artworks emphasise fragility, humour and the idiosyncratic craftmanship(s) of protecting bodies from threat.
The exhibition title is taken from an annotation by the armourer Jacob Halder in the Greenwich Album, held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. It gestures towards the historical narratives that inform the works on display while also nodding to the enduring artistic impulse to display, to create objects and insist upon their being seen.
Thes peces wer made by me explores armour as both a physical shield and a symbolic language. Armour becomes a site where identity is staged and contested, where images of power coexist with absurdity and vulnerability. By drawing upon overlooked details and eccentric motifs, the works reflect on how history is remembered and reimagined, and how protection often reveals as much as it conceals in a world where exposure, visibility and storytelling remain central to how we understand each other.