This work is one if a series of ‘book’ sculptures made by Scobie in the late 1970s-early 1980s. They explore the sculptural possibilities of the book as a visual object. As Scobie described: “they all express in different ways, nature, the erotic, and I hope, some kind of abstract spiritual reality, the recognition of which I can only leave to the viewer”. The title ‘XII: Small Sleep’ was selected after the sculpture was completed, as it reminded the artist of a specific memory. Scobie recalled: “to look into long grass, a crevice, undergrowth, a reptile cabinet in a zoo, a room – a motionless creature in a corner concealed by its stillness, not immediately revealed to the eye, which when recognised both unnerves and compels by its secret position in my vision.”