About the work

The coffee stain is the only real thing here. Not the people, not the counter itself, which is too perfect to be anything but a stage. It is a mark of a moment that has passed, a history that has accumulated, even if only for a few seconds. The smocks are too clean, the wiping too precise; it’s a rehearsal for use, not actual use. There is a strange melancholy in this anticipation, this elaborate preparation for something that has not yet begun, or perhaps, that will never truly arrive. It is the ritual of maintenance detached from the object of its care, where the act itself becomes the thing that must be polished, endlessly. The stain remains. A study in Ritualistic weariness and Precise diligence held in the same frame. In dialogue with 1960s British New Wave cinema stills.