Carl Anderson’s Gauntlet III reflects on the growing prevalence of knife crime in Britain, exploring the cultural backwardness that persists despite broader societal progress. For Anderson, creating the gauntlets is a therapeutic response to personal trauma: being stabbed in the left side of his neck. This experience, combined with his brother’s loss of his left leg in a motorbike accident around the same time, imbues the left hand with deep personal significance, symbolising misfortune, vulnerability, and a struggle for resilience.

The gauntlets act as both protection and display, mirroring historical armour’s dual role of defence and performance. They embody masculinity’s contradictions—stoicism versus vulnerability, strength versus fragility. While armour traditionally symbolises power and status, Anderson uses clay, a fragile and process-driven material, to highlight human vulnerability. The gauntlets’ intricate, almost playful details challenge their serious purpose, blending violence with humour in a way that recalls medieval carnival traditions, where laughter and solemnity coexist.

Through this work, Anderson questions the weight of masculinity as an outdated yet persistent construct. The gauntlets, with their heightened sense of self, nod to gamification and escapism—an emboldened protagonist facing magnified struggles that, under scrutiny, feel insignificant. They critique and celebrate manhood, holding both reverence and ridicule for its place in society.

Anderson’s use of armour as a metaphor reflects on societal expectations, personal isolation, and the human need for protection, all while grappling with the tension between what is tangible and what feels impossibly far-fetched. The work invites viewers to consider how trauma, masculinity, and identity intersect, transforming personal pain into a broader reflection on resilience and vulnerability.