Some thoughts - an artist statement of sorts - in progress

As I try to sort out what on earth I'm going to say on Friday during my public critique, here are some thoughts:

There is a cluster of connected ideas that I have been thinking about over the past several months, centered loosely around our relationship to animals. It started with the interesting notion that we often have to personify animals or imbue them with human characteristics in order to care about them. Like, it's not enough just to say "animals live in the woods so let's leave them alone and stop cutting down the woods", we have to give the animals human virtues. A good example and the animal that started me down this path is the rat -- if there are a whole bunch, they are pests, an infestation, and we exterminate them. On the other hand, these same animals are described as being smart, affectionate, social, capable of learning new things, recognizing their owner and being playful. There is even evidence that they laugh when they play. I'm interested in the way that this rhetoric or framing of animals affects the way we view them, and how problematic it can be if you have 30 rats chewing through your electric cords or want to eat a hamburger.

The second is a throwaway comment someone made that pointed out that at many points in history, whenever someone in power wants to enact a genocide, they repeatedly compare the "lesser" group of people to cockroaches and pests. It's amazing to me that these very simple rhetorical/verbal devices can have such a profound influence on the way we view something.

Therefore, at this moment, I think I am interested in this rhetorical framing of animals and people.

The third idea that I think is somewhat related -- this notion of specialness, wanting to be special, individual or "real" like the velveteen rabbit being personified and unique and special, like Carl Sagan . . .

I realize that this collection of notes and thoughts, while directly feeding into and really generating my artistic output, makes less sense when it talks about that artistic output and doesn't show it. But that isn't the point. :) Suffice it to say right now I'm making paintings, and they are of stuffed animals, and I see them as a way to investigate the way we look at animals. With these pieces, I'm particularly interested in the moment where the image slips between being something cuddly and something life-threatening, something alive-looking, dead-looking, and never alive in the first place, between a pile of toys and a pile of slaughtered animals, etc.