Fire King No. 2, Plop, the Frog Jumps

Phillip King made four works in the 'Fire King' series: Fire King No. 1, 1989-90, Fire King No. 2, Plop, The Frog Jumps, 1989-90 (the present work), Fire King No. 3, The Other, 1991 and Fire King No. 4, Water Hands, 1991-92. Tim Hilton writes, 'As work on the four sculptures progressed King began to associate them with the four elements. We are at liberty to think of them as evocations or portrayals of Fire, Earth, Air and Water ... At the centre of the sculpture [Fire King No. 1] is the king, a figure strikingly reminiscent of the head of Christ that King had made when a student at Cambridge. In each of the four sculptures this king is a surprised onlooker, but he is also both protector and judge. In Fire King he holds back the threatening figure from the dreamer. In Plop, the Frog Jumps [the present work] something else happens. King was thinking of an Egyptian mother goddess, and his central figure becomes hermaphroditic. The frog jumps from the king's belly. This sculpture has the head of a youth attached to the body of a sea snake. The holes in its fabric are the holes in a skull. Moons and shields were afterthoughts 'but helped the mood of the work'' (op. cit., p. 89).