Soccer Baby
This small work attracted me. Some of the works here contain
quite dark undertones and I love them for exactly that. The seemingly innocent aesthetic makes the sinister content all the more jarring. A childlike beaded
pillow that reminds me of the small money purses from my childhood is supporting a
freshly chopped baby gorillas head. Its blood fill the centre circle of the
fields white geometric markings. The eyes of the creatures' head are diamonds,
signifiers of beauty literally in the eye-socket of the beholder. The
connotations come thick and fast. Famous Brazilian footballer Pele aka “the black pearl” maybe?, pillows
support heads when we sleep or the kings crown, sporting crowns, blood diamonds, white fetischism of black athleticism.
Whatever the artists intentions I have no doubt they are completely twisted. I
just love the ambiguity and the risk.
Prairie Pioneer
The American government spent something like four hundred times what
they spent on the space race just to irrigate the deserts of Arizona and the
mid west of the country. A chequered history full of heroes and villains,
victims and martrys, the poor pioneers were often left high and dry. The sale
of land and transport to these places was often a dubious enterprise which made
railway companies a lot of money. When they arrived the land was often dry and the
rain they prayed for and believed would come never eventuated. This piece
articulates both predator and prey and evokes for me this dark story. Again this
might not be everybody’s reading.
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