I was selected for “Softcopy” exhibition at the Kimura Gallery, University of Alaska, April 3-17, 2006. I have always been fascinated by time and this exhibition was an ideal opportunity to document a period in my life when I was obsessed with genetics and had embarked on breeding a champion mouse to gain a National Mouse Club best in breed trophy. Our vast knowledge on the way living thing are made, enable us to create larger or smaller domesticated animals or other living organisms for food and pleasure.
The piece exhibited in the ‘Softcopy’ exhibition was called ‘Site Under Construction’ this was an ongoing project I started in 1999, which explored the complex idea of identity and truth. Documenting how to breed a ‘difficult colour’ – difficult colours are the colours painters love to use. I was painting with living things.
Through out the web there are thousands of extremist viewpoints all ejaculating vicious and malicious bile. By assuming an extreme identity you can adapt innocent information and create a political or moral hard-line manifesto and engage in extreme ideologies and propagate propaganda. Extremes like fascism can be alluring in times of National crisis and could be considered as a remedy for terrorism and economic crisis. (I naturally don’t agree with this but…)
Selective breeding to create the perfect, idealized form and color within living organisms (if taken to the extreme) have similar philosophies and methodologies to those employed in ethnic cleansing. The weak and imperfect are destroyed and non-conforming breeding stock culled; the aim is to create an elite super species. Read more...
Another view from the exhibition pdf of article in ‘The Northern Light’
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fubxn698OZA&w=354&h=214]
