Artist Statement

Ross Deeley (b.2001, Birmingham) is an Artist working across and inbetween sculpture, drawing and video, currently living and working in London. 

Deeley’s work is a meditation on the passage of time, done through analysing the materiality of found objects and the imbued histories within them. Influenced by modern philosophy and movements including Thing Theory and Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), his work examines how materials and objects exist, perceive and absorb information beyond human understanding. Within his sculptures he explores the tension between permanence and impermanence. 

Collecting and tracing the history of objects is central to his practice. His work conjures the energy within everyday, mundane, and discarded items - ranging from snail shells to industrial crucible graphite. Within this methodology of invocation, he adopts a speculative approach to archeology and geology, making the invisible threads between objects visible.

Recently his practice has revolved around humorous assemblages of organic materials with temporal qualities, such as snail shells, placing them alongside commercial lighting elements and mirrors. In these works, light acts as a thread between the known and unknown. The reflected light, amplified by mirrors, creates a dynamic play between absence and presence, reinforcing the idea that time is not linear but recursive—each moment folded into the next, reflecting past and future simultaneously.

He is currently a student at the Royal College of Art, studying on the Contemporary Art Practice MA.