Staton employs an expansive range of media and mediums in her practice. She is keenly attuned to sculptures’ capacity to be both monument – a socio-historical marker – and, at the same time, a delighting spur to curiosity regarding form, materials and craft. Her art derives from thoughtful conceptual intentions and often provokes unexpected narratives as people interact with it. “Woah, where’d that come from!?…” said one of a pair of purple blazered girls passing by Chicken and Egg, and looking back over their shoulders smiling, they continued their impromptu critique in what sounded like enthused and astonished tones.

Contrasting with its stark breeze block plinth, Chicken and Egg – made from painted ten-millimetre-thick laser cut steel plate – is a colourful affair. The squiggly outline of a fledgling chick with its beady eyes, flutter of black lashes and pursed, bright red ‘kissy’ beak lend this hybrid form a comical air. A street level encounter with Chicken and Egg induces a beaming smile. The yellow chick is incongruously balanced atop long, spindly brown ‘road runner’ legs. All the better to see the work rising chirrupfully over the tall hedge that runs adjacent to Camberwell New Road. When viewed from the open side of the pocket garden we can see large drips of fried egg running down the side of the plinth, lush white against grey. Staton’s sculpture glows when it’s overcast, becoming even more luminous in sunshine. And, only when viewed from the top deck of a passing bus do we fully realise that the chicken’s clawed feet are indeed dancing in the bright yellow yolk of an egg.