Tessa Farmer, 'Swarm'
‘The Nature
of the Beast’ is an exhibition well worth a visit at the New Art
Gallery, Walsall. I found myself there last week attracted by it’s theme of
animals in art, which is something I’m really interested in. There is something
about the mystery, power and appearance of animals and creatures that I find
really fascinating, so it was great to visit this exciting exhibition that was
all about some of these issues and featured a range of contemporary artists
working in painting, drawing, sculpture and photography.
Olly and Suzi, 'Spider', aquarelle pencil on paper
I was greeted up the stairs by a really
large aquarelle coloured pencil drawing of a rather menacing spider blown up to
gigantic proportions by artistic collaborators, Olly and Suzi, who work on
location together on expeditions across the continents, and even under the sea,
attempting to get close to their, often very dangerous, subjects in their
natural habitat. Elsewhere they were
represented by some other lovely drawings of swarms of scurrying ants, beetles
and cockroaches across large sheets of paper, rendered very directly using inks
in an almost calligraphic way. I loved those.
Olly and Suzi, 'Ants', ink on paper
Olly and Suzi, 'Dungbeetles', ink on paper
There were also some very large and
beautiful photographs by Matt Collishaw of squashed butterflies captured at the
moment of death as they are pressed between two glass slides. They were
suitably simultaneously beautiful and incredibly melancholy. These photos
surrounded the surreal taxidermy sculptures of Polly Vernon, where dead foxes
and a large deer were being seemingly attacked or occupied by other creatures
such as birds, and even an octopus, whose tentacles were being pulled out of
various orifices of the poor fox. The deer, however was displayed on its side
with its stomach slit open which was now host to a nest of hanging bats. It was
incredible. The installation by artist Tessa Farmer (top image) was even better with an
army of ants and crabs marching across the floor, which I feared I would
squash with my big feet and then be set upon in an insect frenzy, similar to
the fate of the adjacent python overwhelmed
by vicious, biting creatures. Above and around you were hundreds of flies, bees
and other insects and weird things that were wonderful to observe ‘eyeball to
eyeball’, as it were.
Polly Morgan, 'Hide and Fight', taxidermy and mixed media
Polly Morgan, 'Harbour' (detail), taxidermy, rubber and mixed media
The six life size paintings of prize bulls
by Mark Fairington were also impressive, looking photographic in their detail
from a distance, but much more painterly up close, but my favourite exhibit was
the ‘Sphinx’ by artist Patricia Piccinini, a sculpture representing ideas
imagining a future world of cloning and laboratory created hybrid creatures. It
was made from fiberglass and so life-like with it’s veiny skin covered in tiny
hairs, and genitalia like mouth I found it genuinely disturbing and
nightmarish. I've since looked into her website and it's full of equally thought-provoking and disturbing work.
Mark Fairnington, 'Wroxall Tracer', oil on canvas, 235 x 367cms
Patricia Piccinini, 'Sphinx', fibreglass, resin, human hair
Well, if I haven’t sold that show to you in
this post there is definitely something wrong…!
