Term 2: Contacting Animal Welfare Groups

After the last tutorial, it was suggested to me that I send some of my work to animal welfare groups to try and receive some feedback from relevant organisations.

I composed the following message:

Dir Sir or Madam,

I am a third year Fine Art student at Cardiff Met, and this year I have based both my dissertation and subject work on the theme of animal rights and animal welfare.

For the exhibition at the end of the year, I am creating paintings to try and make people re-think their perceptions of animals. The paintings are done on mirrors – the eyes of the animals are left blank and mirrored to create a ‘thousand yard stare’ until the point when your own eyes are positioned correctly and reflect back at you. This will hopefully force people to draw comparisons between themselves and animals, and also give each person an individual interactive experience.

It was suggested to me that I contact animal welfare groups and gain some feedback on these ideas.

I have attached a few photographs of some sample paintings. If someone would be able to provide feedback in any context, it would be greatly appreciated.

Louise Davies.

I have sent this message, along with photographs of some examples of my paintings, to four organisations so far: Cruelty Free International, BUAV, and Anti-Fur Society via their Facebook groups, and Animal-Aid via their webpage.

UPDATE

I received a response from Cruelty Free International regarding my work:

Term 2: Yayoi Kusama

During the formative assessment on ‘Ideas’, fellow student Rianna suggested looking at ‘The Passing Winter’ by Yayoi Kusama. This piece is a glass cube into which the viewer is invited to look. Inside, the cube is mirrored so that it reflects itself, the openings to look through, and even other viewers peering in. It’s a changing artwork; colours altering with the environment outside.

‘The Passing Winter’

Inside view

The infinite and endless reflections within the cube reminded me of a similar piece spanned over a whole room. On researching, I found it is actually also by Yayoi Kusama.

‘Mirror Room (Pumpkin)’, 1991

These infinite, continuous reflections add surreal depth and also confusion. Like a ‘hall of mirrors’ at a fair ground, these rooms are confusing – which are the real walls, and which are reflections?

Kusama’s work is making me think about re-reflecting my own work. Perhaps one painting reflected numerous times within a small room would feel claustrophobic, and effectively represent both the sheer volume of animals used in testing as well as the cramped, trapped conditions and excessive use of animals who are thought of only as statistics by so many.

Term 2: Jonty Hurwitz

I have been trying to research artists who use mirrors within paintings. This has proven to be quite difficult; I have yet to find any artist who physically incorporates mirrors into painted pieces, or paints onto mirrors. However, Jonty Hurwitz uses mirrors in a different way.

‘The Kiss of Chytrid’

Using acrylic, resin, powder and steel, Hurwitz creates elongated, distorted sculptures. Only on reflecting these sculptures in a convex mirror do you see what the sculpture really is; a frog.

I like the concept of things only being made sense of through the use of something else; this sculpture via the mirror. Without the mirror, the sculpture simply looks like a stretched piece of clay. My work doesn’t especially relate, but it does capture a similar idea; using a mirror to complete the artwork and add the final element. In this case, making sense of a sculpture. In my case, bringing the eyes of animal paintings to life.