Chris Day
(British, b. 1968)

"Strange Fruit"

handblown and sculpted glass with applied metal
h. 6-3/4", w. 8", d. 4-1/2"

Provenance: Estate of Thomas B. Lemann, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Literature: chrisdayglass.com; Chris Day, interview with Jabari Owens-Bailey, Museum of Glass, podcast transcription, May 16, 2023, museumofglass.org/frit-city-podcast/2023/5/16/episode-a-two-way-conversation-with-chris-day.


Notes: As a black glassblower...My main purpose… Is to engage the audience on issues that are hard to confront on many levels, using art to help overcome some of the traumas that haunt our collective past.
- Chris Day, 2020
Vessel Gallery, London

Interested in art since he was a child, Day worked as a plumber for twenty years before enrolling in classes at Wolverhampton University where he eventually received a degree in Glass and Ceramics. Of Jamaican and British heritage, he explores the present and historical plight of black people in England through his biomorphic glass sculptures.

Often incorporating industrial materials, especially heating or electrical elements, which are twisted and knotted around the vessel, he pushes and pulls the partially encaged glass, forcing it to bulge and push against the constraints. The work offered here is from his "Strange Fruit" series, which references the song initially and most famously performed by Billie Holliday; "Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree".

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