Tiny tales of modern sadness in Nic Joly's terrific Under Foot series

We come across miniature sculpture quite often but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like Nic Joly’s dark, sad little tableaux. The tiny works range from the fantastical to the metaphorical, but the ones that really stand out for me are the heartbreaking scenes of loneliness, awkwardness and regret. With titles like Stood Up and Lonely Lunch, Nic not only manages to capture tremendous pathos on a tiny scale but also communicates a great deal with minimum fuss. This skill is also apparent in works like Ex-pat where you can almost smell the country club scotch coming off the white-suited figure; but it’s not just dark humour he’s capable of, as demonstrated in the pleasingly simple Stuck and the tribute to Felix Baumgartner’s Red Bull space jump.