taxis derma |
The technical definition of the word taxidermy means to arrange a skin, deriving from the Greek roots taxis (arrangement) and derma (skin). Collage as 'arrangement' maintains a careful process of elimination, selection, collecting, cataloging and chance. Working with the contours of the skin or the cut of the photographic material, both art forms are urging life into the subject. The act of collage is to re-align the unexpected, and redistribute consumer societies debris. Taxidermy can also be seen as a form of recycling. The transformation of value and property takes place through the applied reconstruction of the artists eye.
From the idealised glamour preserved in a fashion photograph to the specimen in the cabinet, nothing has been left to decay, to age, to complete its cycle. Forcing the outside indoors, into our homes and onto our bodies, we look through the lens of captivation, consumption and conquest. Birds are arguably the greatest symbolic references to freedom that we have, crossing linguistic and territorial boundaries, yet the birds in the exhibition cannot fly, and cannot see. It has taken less than two centuries to replace animals with machines and expel them from our society. We are asked to question our own outdated value system relating to animal as a commodity or as a companion, and perhaps to examine our role as an individual and as a collective identity within in society.
From the idealised glamour preserved in a fashion photograph to the specimen in the cabinet, nothing has been left to decay, to age, to complete its cycle. Forcing the outside indoors, into our homes and onto our bodies, we look through the lens of captivation, consumption and conquest. Birds are arguably the greatest symbolic references to freedom that we have, crossing linguistic and territorial boundaries, yet the birds in the exhibition cannot fly, and cannot see. It has taken less than two centuries to replace animals with machines and expel them from our society. We are asked to question our own outdated value system relating to animal as a commodity or as a companion, and perhaps to examine our role as an individual and as a collective identity within in society.
View featured paintings: Menagerie series
| Exhibition text |
