Through the Thorns I and II are two stainless-steel reliefs composed of branching forms rendered in silhouette. Placed beside the work Rebirth, they echo the thorn from Thorn Throne, but stripped of flesh and reduced to structure.

Together, the two reliefs form part of a material dialogue between the works: painted growth and fabricated skeleton, hair and wool alongside steel, the residue of a living body alongside a material formed through industrial labour. Their relationship to Thorn Throne and Rebirth extends the same forms across different materials and states, while the repeated branching recalls the exhibition’s concern with transformation as a process in which form persists by changing shape.