Keep Me In Your Heart by Matt Bailey

In pop culture the skeleton is everywhere. To scare people in various horror films, dress cursed temples in Indiana Jones, move people in Pixar's Coco, fight Jason in Jason and the Argonauts, or even make people laugh in Lucas Art's Grim Fandango game.

But the skeleton is above all at the center of Matt Bailey's work. His obsession with giving life to heaps of bones meets the artist's second fad here: voluptuous and scantily clad women.

Far from being gratuitously provocative, this 20cm high statuette questions us about the relationship between this skeleton and this woman smoking a cigarette. Is it death that encourages him to join her by lighting that harmful cigarette or a loved one whose presence is still felt? Mystery.