PATRICIA PICCININI: RELATIVITY

Today I attended the Relativity exhibition by Patricia Piccinni and wow! what a compelling exhibition.

I was repelled and yet attracted to the beautifully ugly 'mutants'. I so wanted to love them in their ugliness and yet was turned off by their 'otherness', I wanted to touch and yet was scared of what I would feel when I did...

The children are more than life-like they are real, just paused in time. I was showing a friend some photos from the art gallery website (Art Gallery of Western Australia) and she asked if they were part of the exhibit - thinking that they were real children that had posed for the photographs.

Piccinni is commenting on the political and emotional ramifications of experimental biotechnology with fantasty mutant beings as the centerpiece of each sculpture. The beings are fleshy with a covering of light, bristly fur, reminiscent of baby elephants. They are ugly and yet their expressions are vulnerable and so human like that you can not help but feel a connection to them.

Two of the sculptures don't 'fit'. They are still expressing the same ideas but they do not have the humanoid connection. They are based on scooters and the idea that they too can express human emotion. The sculpture titled 'Blood is Thicker' shows two small scooters nestled together, seemingly sheltering each other from some, unknown threat; with their little dials showing plaintive expressions with the needles on the dials down-turned. The other 'misfit' sculpture in the series was called 'Stags' and it depicted two bronze scooters in the pose of a pair of battling stags, they expressed a power that you would not normally associate with two not so powerful scooters.

For anyone wanting to challenge their thinking or wanting to give themselves something to think about, go along, have a look. Tell me how it makes you feel, I'd love to know if anyone else experiences the same conflicting emotions.

Here's some links to other reports on the exhibition.

The West Australian Newspaper, an earlier article from the same source. Perth Now and City Search Perth

Illustration Friday - Legendary

Legendary Beauty: a collage

For those of you who aren't aware, the figure on the shell is Aphrodite / Venus the Greek / Roman goddess of love and beauty.  The Greek figure on the right is Helen of Troy, a woman so beautiful that men went to war over her (The Trojan War) and the goddesses were jealous of her.  Other than that there's Marilyn Monroe the legendary voluptuous blonde and Audrey Hepburn the legendary elfin brunette.  Then there's the modern beauties, Angelina Joile (my favourite), Charlize Theron and I can't think of who the other is.  The 3 in the background are randoms from catalogues I had lying around.  The poem was written by the legendary Lord Byron.

Latest scrapbooking projects

Perth Zoo

This layout is the result of a challenge set by The Scrapbook Establishment, the August sketch challenge (I was all inspired after winning last month with What Little Boys Are Made Of - see below).
Connor

This is the result of the monthly challenge set by the Cricut club I go to at Scrapbooks From the Heart.  We were given the skull and crossbones (in neutral tone) and we were required to add another Cricut cut which is Connor's name.  I was initially going to do a plaque to go on Connor's door, but found this frame at Bunnings and it went from there.

FI: Enough

Very simple, could probably do with some more work, but there you go.

1920's inspired card designs

These are some cards I made last year, they are hand drawn and cut.

FI: Foggy

This is my first drawing in 12 years.  Thought I'd give this Friday Illustration thing a go.  This is pen and watercolour pencil.

Name tag

This was made using the Cricut again, it's just a name tag to wear while at the Cricut club, but I love it.