Maisie Broadhead’s multidisciplinary practice operates across a number of disciplines including jewellery, metal, filmmaking, set design and installation, with photography playing an integral role. Exploring themes from art-history, Broadhead’s work oscillates between the three-dimensional object and tw0-dimensional image, her pieces often centering on a photographic print that is exhibited within a set of objects to create sculptural experiences.
Historical paintings are a major influence for Broadhead and her works often establishes connections between the past and the present. Her series Jewellery Depicted (2009 -2012) mimics the compositions of several historical paintings where jewellery is at the centre of their meaning; for this she created jewellery specifically for each photographic re-enactment which acted as props within the image. Her recent series Pearls (2016) took a broad influence from formal female portraiture from the seventeenth century and the commonly featured symbolism of pearls within these paintings.
Solo outings of Broadhead’s work include Pearls (Paul Smith Albermarle Street Gallery, London, 2017), Peepers (Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 2014) and A Young Man’s Progress (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2015), all building on her preoccupation with notions of value, illusion and the question of artifice.