ANIMAL

About

Animal is an investigative exhibition by various artists into the strange world of anthropomorphized creatures, real or imaginary and into the way animals are observed, objectified, controlled and catalogued.

All of the works shown here are existing pieces created somewhere between the last two to five years.

It was imperative that these should be brought together for they create an exciting and dynamic cohesive body of work. The theme is approached in its individual forms with a dose of wit, wonderment and theorist clarity.

An underlying dual approach takes place in this particular collection of works but it does not lead to fragmentation, on the contrary, each piece is an interesting layer and evidence of particular ways in which each artist looks at the same subject.

Adopting the statement written by Cary Wolfe in Parallax (volume 12, no.1, pages 95):

'…The precise point of an exhibition about or around the theme of Animals does not necessary mean we attempt to merely represent animals or raise direct issues about 'animal rights'(…) but that we inevitably and ultimately put into questioning what it is [to be Human]'.

This exhibition does precisely that.

On one side we have Clara, Alexandra, Johanna and Bronwen who approach it head on with a series of subversive and varied array of documentations, dissections and analysis; some mocking taxonomy, others playing at being amateur zoologists, or outside observers/reporters of odd systems of control. On the other side we have Jack Catling's performances inspired by Magic and Shamanism and Roberto Bortollotti's haunting film of a Crow, where the animal as a magical concept and as a symbol of spiritual power matches Jack Catling's artistic approach of the subject matter of the animal. Margot Sanders draws a world of wonderful and absurd creatures on paper with ink, the lines that make the human shape blend into those of animals.