BEAUTY: Installations--Claire Morgan

The astonishing work of Claire Morgan is... well, just astonishing. Incorporating taxidermied animals and other natural elements such as leaves, dandelion seeds, flies, and food, her geometrical compositions of torn plastic invade the natural world. Inferences can be made about the ephemeral nature of life, the inevitability of death, the arbitrary nature of the animal world, and the horrible beauty... or beautiful horror... of it all. Not only are the concepts for each piece a literal marvel, but so is the execution: how much patience does it require to string fluffy, easy-to-blow-away dandelion seeds onto nylon line--a truck load... or a boat load? Astonishing...

Above: A Part At The Seam, Taxidermy Jackdaw, thistle seeds, torn black polythene, lead, nylon, acrylic

Above: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Torn black polythene, a taxidermied fox, rotted rabbit meat, fishing hooks, nylon, lead, acrylic

Above: Fluid, Strawberries, taxidermied crow, fishing hooks, nylon

Above: Foreign Body, Bluebottles [flies], a taxidermy hare, nylon, lead, acrylic

Above: Gone To Seed, Thistle seeds, a taxidermy carrion crow, nylon, lead, acrylic

Above: Here Is The End Of All Things, Thistle seeds, bluebottles [flies], a taxidermy barn owl, nylon, lead, acrylic

Above: While You Were Sleeping, Taxidermy Red Squirrel, bluebottle [flies], lead weights, nylon, acrylic

http://www.claire-morgan.co.uk

BEAUTY: Mixed Media--David R. Harper

David R. Harper's artist statement says it all:

I am drawn to the form and idea of memorials, those markers that formalize links between memory and present experience. My main fascination is for the ways in which people bring facets of these ritual systems and objects into domestic spaces in order to amplify their personal identification with them, or perhaps with the cultures that support them.

There is intense empathy in the will to memorialize, to lay down a particular meaning on an object that is not inherent to it—life as remembered in the ripe fig of an ancient Xenia painting, or death anticipated in a skull. In my work I am taking account of these empathic tendencies, both in the sense of identification with and understanding of an ‘other’, and in the sense of joining one’s own feelings to an object.

To frame these elements of my work, I refer to certain periods, modes of craft, and domestic embellishment that articulate peculiar links to an ‘ordered’ natural world – the presentation of taxidermy in the home or museum setting, for example. The pleasure of asserting control over what is uncontrollably “wild,” satisfying an urge to have the animal form present in our controlled spaces, reminds us of what we no longer have and no longer are. These eccentric fusions of nature and culture are the uneasy disguises of pathos and pride that allow us to recognize and even celebrate an animal’s mortality while deferring our own.

The figurative connection between nature and mortality is evident in both historical and contemporary environments; the "memento mori" surrounds us in myriad forms at all times. In my lifetime, however, its presence has been more or less sanitized, the natural world euphemized, along with its suggestion of the inevitable. Rather than experiencing our link to mortality, we celebrate our disconnect with the things of which we have no control over.

By creating elaborate objects and situations that combine common and unusual materials and historical techniques, I hope to amplify an ephemeral natural world with enduring monumentalization. I am attempting to engage the viewer in a dialogue on the metaphoric weight that the objects present both historically and emotionally. I have always tried to create work that addresses collective truths while retaining intimacy and reflection; so that the viewer can connect with the objects, and delve into my relationship with them.

As I negotiate my relationship with things like cloth, ceramics, animal hides within the precision of sculptural practices, I am aware that they carry their mix of material histories and social conditions with them. I point to these from my own present position, exalting and commemorating their origins even as I reshape and reposition the same materials to carry specific emotion or meaning. My main work is to narrativize the two, and to not have one story obscure the other.

Above: The Young Lovers

Above: Noblesse Oblige

Above: Biblio I - VI

Above: Better The Devil You Know

http://www.davidrharper.com/

BEAUTY: Art--Kohei Nawa

Japanese artist Kohei Nawa covers taxidermied animals in glass spheres, transforming these figure into what the artist refers to as a "husk of light." This "Pix-cell" series includes deer, elk, rabbits, leopards, and ducks as well as inanimate objects such as musical instruments, children's toys, and shoes.


I posted an Interior Design piece about the home of George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg which features one of Kohei Nawa's pieces, here.

http://www.kohei-nawa.net/

BEAUTY: Installation--Pekka Jylhä

Finnish sculptor Pekka Jylhä creates haunting, enigmatic pieces using metal as well as real taxidermied animals. The results are touching and hypnotizing. These rabbits are messengers and these pieces whisper secrets...


Top to bottom: Tear Dryer; Lantern Bearer; I Would Like To Understand; It's Not Too Late; Albino; and two views of Revelation

http://www.pekkajylha.fi/index2.html