A meerkat standing sentry - up on its hind legs, chest forward, forepaws held loosely in front, head turned and tilted upward. The pose is the whole piece. At 27cm it's the tallest of the small work and it reads in silhouette from the other side of a room.
The body is a soft off-white with dark oxidised blotching across the chest, flanks and haunches, where the donor metal had worn through and the weld heat coloured the steel. It isn't a painted pattern - it's what the material did. The muzzle is dark metal with a punched eye and fine whiskers of drawn wire, the ears are small cut discs set flat to the skull, and a long tapered tail sweeps down and out behind to act as a third point of balance.
The blotching lands wherever the metal and the heat put it, so no two coats are the same.
17 × 8 × 27cm.
Good on a hall console, shelf or windowsill, and better outdoors on a step, wall top or set among grasses where the upright stance clears the planting.
