Kingsley
Baird

The Odyssey Collection is a series of sculptures inspired by historical, contemporary, and mythological narratives that constitute a ‘journey’ through selected conflicts and ‘events’ from antiquity to the present. The collection is named Odyssey because of this journey and its reference to Homer’s tales of the Trojan War, a conflict that has inspired the works of artists through the ages.

The Odyssey narratives are composed within the three-dimensional 'settings' of cast-bronze or brass sheet First World War helmets and headgear. The headgear (including British Brodie and its variants used by the US and Commonwealth nations, German Pickelhaube and Stahlhelm, and a French Adrian helmet along with the Turkish kabalak, Australian slouch hat and New Zealand lemon squeezer) form the ‘mise en scène’ for individual episodes and overall narrative compositions. The materiality of the works is inspired by a variety of sources including bronze helmets of antiquity and the narrative expression of black- and red-figure vases, particularly those associated with the Trojan War.

The number of works in The Odyssey Collection can continue to grow.