Five Nails

Hold out your hand with the palm facing up, then pull your fingers in so that your fingertips point to the sky. This is what the sculpture in front of you looks like. The title of this sculpture, Five Nails, describes it: Five long human fingernails, filed and shaped to pointed ends. All five stand upright in a semicircle. Each nail towers over you at more than three and a half metres in height, or twelve feet tall. The nails are made of fiberglass and each one stands atop a base that looks like a block of stone. The nails give off a pale-yellow hue. Teo chose fiberglass as the material because it creates an impressive look, while being light in weight. Teo encourages you to see them as more than fingernails. They could be monuments or thrones, evoking different feelings. Depending on your response, you might feel awe, fear, or a sense of introspection. Five Nails brings to mind the Chinese classical story of Journey to the West, in which one of the main characters, Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, tries to prove he can escape Buddha’s palm. Sun Wukong leaps across the sky, and he thinks he has travelled to the ends of the universe. There, he encounters five imposing pillars and marks one of them with his name. He returns to Buddha, who reveals to the Monkey King that those pillars were Buddha’s fingers all along. The Monkey King has never left his hand, no matter how hard he has tried. The Monkey King found himself facing something far larger and greater than he was. Not a comfortable feeling. So, as you view these towering nails, think about what they stir within you. Do they bring a sense of unease, a reminder of fears from your past, or do they touch something deep in your subconscious? How the work strikes you today is part of the captivating mystery of Five Nails.