The work of Ellen Rogers brings focus to the question of whether the human is part of, or separate from, “Nature”. The giraffe sculpture above has the body of a giraffe, human front legs a mechanical replacement for its hind legs and is made of steel. It is an artistic chimera – an image of [...]
Archive of posts tagged animal-human relationship
Animal Mysticism – Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow
The images in Gregory Colbert’s Ashes and Snow remind us that animals have always had a mystical place in the world of humans. Started in 1992, Ashes and Snow is a long term project in which photographer and film-maker Gregory Colbert works towards “rediscovering the common ground that once existed when people lived in harmony [...]
Naked With Pigs – Miru Kim
“These industrial environments are so desensitizing in that you, even if you are an animal lover, become complaisantly accepting of the fact that the live beings are only raw materials for mass commodity production. This needs some serious questioning.” These are some of the thoughts of New York Based artist Miru Kim in relation to [...]
Robin Schwartz – Amelia and her Animals
Robin Schwartz is a friend. But that’s not why her work is on this blog. It is here because, for many months, I have been looking for work that describes a positive relationship between us and the non-human rather than the ubiquitous work that castigates ad nauseam the damage we are doing to our environment. [...]
Henri Rousseau for The Year of the Tiger
Henri Rousseau’s naif art paintings were mercilessly criticized during his lifetime. He struggled, and failed, to achieve acceptance by the art establishment. Within a couple of decades of this condemnation, his art was hanging in the world’s leading museums. So much for the establishment. Rousseau was fascinated by jungles and the environment they produce. His [...]
Man and Animals – Amy Stein's Domesticated
How do you examine Man’s relationship with Animals and ‘nature’ in a way that doesn’t result in crass, clichéd or meaningless imagery? Amy Stein manages to do this with such a powerful artistic sensitivity that her images stop you in your tracks – well at least they did me. In her series named “Domesticated” she [...]
