Jeux — échecs et cartes

Chess is a game of thrones in the literal sense: "shah" is Persian for "king", and "shah mat" means "the king is dead". For a thousand and a half years people have moved kings, queens and bishops across a board and waged war without blood. Cards are the second such game: four kings, four queens, four knaves, and in every hand someone takes the throne and someone stays in the deck.

The series takes the board and the deck as objects with a history. Worn chessboards played on a thousand times: the squares rubbed away at the corners, the pieces standing mid-game. Card alphabets — letters set like suits, on black and on white. Grids of pieces where king, knight and rook repeat like a pattern. Red, black and white are the whole palette; the rest is time left on the surface.

Relief on artboard — squares and pieces modelled in volume and deliberately worn; paint; gold leaf in the crowns and suits; epoxy resin, which gives the board the shine of polished wood. The edition is numbered.

A series for a study, a library, a living room with a fireplace, a meeting room where decisions are made. A game of thrones on the wall is a reminder that the game is always on, even when no one is moving the pieces.