Fergus Berney-Gibson, The Altar, 2025, familial-sourced animal grease (sheep, cow, chicken), George Foreman indoor/outdoor grill, automotive upholstery leather. 28x60x17cm, 28x60x12cm | Fergus Berney-Gibson, The Trial, 2025, touch, ABS plastic, automotive upholstery leather. 27x20cm, 18x17cm, 12x8cm.
Intricate Rituals traces the uneasy space between boyhood and manhood—where affection becomes obscured by expectation, and kinaesthetic desire is tangled in myth. Through a darkened installation of four sculptural assemblages, the exhibition reframes domestic masculinity as a series of obscure and sacred rituals.
The text of Barbra Krueger’s Untitled (You Construct Intricate Rituals) 1981, states “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men”. This assertion forms the through line for the installation; exploring what relics are key to these rituals. When viewed as a boy these rituals are indescribable play, as a man they are behavioural scripture. The intention for Intricate Rituals is to reframe these behaviours of standard male gender as relics of that indescribable play. When manhood seemed abstract and inscrutable, and something to be earned through initiation. The examine exposure to these rituals on the cusp of that boyhood, unable to verbalise or structure them into an adolescent worldview.
Through a queer affect these relics embody the potential collapse between boyhood and manhood; Amyl nitrate leaving ghosts on rugby socks, barbecues with traces of touch in animal grease, and old games consoles; upholstered in the cradling of teenage camaraderie. Yet what these rituals have in common across boy, man and men is simple; the unending, unfilled desire for authentic contact.