The animals came in two by two, hurrah!

A glorious spell of sunshine has swept across the UK of late, fast-tracking the transition from winter via spring and straight into what feels like summer already. The natural world has roared out of hibernation. Eggs have hatched. Trees are in full bloom. There could be no better elemental backdrop for the arrival of artist Jonathan Baldock’s latest commission, recently unveiled in the Ballroom Gallery at Jupiter Artland, on the verdant outskirts of Edinburgh. WYRD is a coven of magical creatures, handmade by Baldock in textile and clay, standing together in pairs in a semi-circle that feels simultaneously protective and conspiratorial. Visitors join the silent group, and there’s an uncanny sense that it is we, not they, who are being observed.

The species in question are each scientifically proven to have same-sex interactions, and relationships even: giraffes, lizards, horses, cats, mice, chickens. Indeed, the premise of the show was born from a news story about a bond between two male penguins at Edinburgh Zoo. Baldock was first intrigued and then dismayed by the nature of the reporting, which suggested the reason these two male penguins were in a relationship was because there was a shortage of female penguins. The tone of the coverage was mawkish, with a sinister undertone in certain places of homophobic bias. It stirred something in Baldock, who had a religious upbringing and is himself gay. The penguins’ behaviour was deemed weird and unnatural, feelings any queer person can relate to in their own awakening.

‘WYRD’, the title of Baldock’s show, has a palimpsest quality to it. ‘In pre-Christian culture, “wyrd” was personified as a Goddess with the power to determine destiny across earthly and spiritual realms,’ Baldock writes in the exhibition’s opening text. Wyrd is an Old Norse word meaning ‘exceptional otherness’. The word has accrued different insinuations over time: magical, dangerous, strange, unnatural, aberrant – arriving today as a slur, more than a complement. Baldock himself has been described as weird, and titling his show with the word’s Old Norse origin is, he explains, a reclamation of its more wonderful and wonder-filled definition.

‘I’ve made these creatures more magical than they ordinarily are,’ Baldock explained at the show’s opening. ‘I’ve played with their scales, and given them new features – hands, noses, ears, faces – cast in ceramic from myself and my partner (the artist Rafal Zajko). They are beautifully monstrous; from a queer perspective, we identify with monsters, rule-breakers and creatures outside the perceived norms of society.’ The creatures have a folk energy, and a certain nostalgic aura. They are familiar, more than threatening and Baldock explains how their forms and details were inspired by vintage soft toy ‘how-to books’ from the 1970s and 1980s.

Baldock worked seven days a week for three months making each animal pair by hand in his studio. There’s a strangely visceral, bodily appeal to them – you sense the fact they have been wrestled out of a psyche into physical form. The metamorphic process of humble sackcloth and coconut fibre stuffing becoming works of art gives them a compelling Frankenstein alchemy. Standing in pairs lends the animals a power, but there’s an intentional Noah’s Ark echo too, of course. We’re left unsure whether they are waiting to board or they’ve been denied access to the Ark for their otherness and are deliberating their fate together. There is palpable tension and poignancy here; something meaningful is softly implied, yet left hanging in the air. The mood is heightened by the pristine primness of the decorated Ballroom Gallery in which they wait. You want to hug them and tell them it's not a phase – it’ll be OK.

‘WYRD’ is a magnificent commission and moving experience. Baldock describes the work with poetic and precise allegorical confidence. ‘Having grown up with a religious background, today I look to the natural world for spiritual sustenance,’ he says. ‘My faith is in nature, and nature is queer. Scientific evidence about same-sex behaviour has existed for decades, but has been routinely ignored or buried, and has only surfaced recently. It’s important to see yourself in this world that we live in – naturally.’ Away from the huddle of forms in the room on the mantelpiece sits a nest with an egg on the verge of hatching. ‘It’s a nod to the next generation,’ Baldock explains. And with that, we descend back into the garden with its pollen-filled air, feeling as if we’ve been granted access to something extraordinary – earthly, primal, animal and spiritual – wyrd in the most wonderful possible way.

‘WYRD’, Jupiter Artland, Edinburgh. From 10 May - 28 September 2025

Jupiterartland.org

Jonathan-baldock.com