Getting Big consists of 16 sculpted toddlers and 16 paintings. Each of the paintings is a response to one of the toddlers.

The toddlers, sculpted from paper composite, stand precariously on top of stools. Attached to each of their heads are groups of constructed objects: ambiguous shapes, architectural forms, and heads of animals, cartoon figures and people.

The toddlers are distributed so as to allow viewers to walk around them, with narrative potentials – nostalgias, beliefs, fears, dreams, desires – located both in the figures, individually, and in the work as a whole.

Getting Big is somewhat disquieting, as the crowning objects are strangely out of place. Collectively, the work generates a primitive rhythm that suggests a pre-linguistic understanding of the world. The toddlers are in state of being that is defined by the belief that anything can happen, and the installation lends to the gallery space a sense that reality is blending with fiction. The viewer is invited into an absurd, dreamlike world.

But Getting Big is also playful and deliberately suggestive of multiple interpretations. It has a primal energy – arising from its bright colours, bold brush strokes and expressive forms – which evokes the spontaneity of the creative process and encourages the viewer to let go and experience the work intuitively rather than through constructed meanings.