Animal Farm!

These images play on the idea of the silhouette. They refer predominantly to traditional silhouette portraiture. This stemmed from my interest in shadow play and such. They depict the profile of a female; I distorted her to give her the unmistakable features of a pig. I was inspired to do this by reading a the text of Eretica: The Transcendent and the Profane in Contemporary Art. The text of the book commented on a piece by Jenny Saville entitled Suspension. It depicts the bloodied carcass of a boar. 

What i found engrossing was the comment the author made on our appalling attitude towards pigs (and perhaps animals in general). He denoted how we used the word 'Pig' as an insult yet we are willing to use their organs as a means to keeping us alive through transplants. This enlivened my imagination and the image just appeared; it regards how their in a space between the animal and human world, between species. By giving the girl the physical components of a pig I am bridging that gap, I am playing with space and denoting its negative aspects. 

I quite like the colours used. The sky blue and strong pink bounce brilliantly off each other but give a rather synthetic feel to the prints. These colours do not normally collide in nature so they create a rather dreamlike effect whose success depends on the eye and taste of the beholder. I always like to thing they represent opposites in a sense; Blue denotes a boy at birth, pink indicate a girl. Space between the sexes? Perhaps, Perhaps not. I did not spent ages deciding on the colours. I just randomly chose them in a quick manner. I wanted to see how they correspond to each other. The use of green works surprisingly well also. Pink and green complement each other (just about) so they heighten their impact when placed together. The blue induces a sense of coolness into pieces seemingly predominated by warm tones. 

I think the image itself is rather weak. In retrospect, I feel I could of done more with it. It is too basic too be visual engrossing as a print. Its flat nature seems rather graphic and almost intrusive on one or two of the prints. It seems like too images cobbled together in many respects. I sense that I should of taken a more realistic treatment and perhaps prepared a drypoint etching. I could of easily used multiple and complex versions of the pink to describe a pig's skin and made an effort to describe texture. I could of even printed on a flattened football as early soccer balls were made from inflated big bladders.