Jim Sanders next to his favourite Totem Pole at Phoenix Brighton. © Sophie Baker / 24 Hour Museum

Sophie Baker discovers a strange world of totemic art at Brighton's Phoenix Gallery.

Who would have thought one man’s rubbish could be another’s treasure? Well, in the North Gallery of Brighton’s Phoenix Gallery artist Jim Sanders has truly created a trove of junk.

From driftwood to bottle caps, Sanders has collected pieces of litter and moulded, shaped and constructed a series of totem poles, each as intricate as the next.

‘Critical Mass’ runs until October 20 2007 and although the North Gallery is consistently bright and airy, you are constantly aware of just how menacing the creations are.

Detail from the Jesus Totem. © Sophie Baker / 24 Hour Museum

The Redditch-born artist has created his series of totem poles, each one made up of a variety of pieces of rubbish from discarded bottle tops (collected from the artist’s local pub) and paintings he had already finished for other projects through to 1940s stamps picked up in a car boot sale. And the result? Twenty beautiful, colourful and thought-provoking works of art.

Amongst the totem poles, which range in working title from ‘Tool Chest Mask’ to ‘Skeleton’, is a set of three which stand out from the rest for their iconic themes: Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the Devil. Sanders’ Catholic background does, as he says, feature heavily throughout the exhibition.

The Jesus totem features the Seven Virtues; the Virgin Mary details the Seven Sorrows; whilst the Devil has the Seven Deadly Sins scrawled across it. Needless to say, according to the Visitor’s Book, the Devil totem with its deep red colouring and 3D horns is a firm favourite.

A Devil totem pole. © Photograph Sophie Baker / 24 Hour Museum

Sanders’ use of Catholicism was, he says, a conscious effort. Whilst other artists “use it without thought”, he has instead used it as the Catholic religion was a huge influence on his life – therefore it belongs in his art.

The pieces he has created were not necessarily sculpted with the intention of putting them together as they stand today. Sanders wanted to combine different elements of his work and see how they interact together with the aim of getting rid of the thought process in creating. He has created ‘automatic’ art.

Sanders hopes to tour with the totems in the future; however it may not be as a complete set. The poles are available for purchase at £2,000 each.

So rubbish or treasure? Well, the saying is right: Sanders has created something beautiful out of a trivial and baffling set of junk: driftwood, old tools and hundreds of beer bottle tops. And no, he didn’t drink all the beer himself.