Featured News
01 December 2008
Re-creation: artists and the animal kingdom
'Re-creation: artists and the animal kingdom', is on show at St Andrews Museum from 17th January 2009 through to 8th March 2009. Fife Contemporary Art & Craft in collaboration with independent exhibition curator Lesley Young bring together a group of artists who present work which explores and manipulates images of the animal kingdom. They include Gemma Coyle, Carole Drake, Nora Fok, Claire Moynihan, Ashley Nieuwenhuizen and Uli Westphal.
As the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Origin of the Species is celebrated we are reminded that artists have a long tradition of engaging with natural history as a source of inspiration and reference. An eclectic mix of contemporary artists have been brought together their approaches range from the aesthetically pleasing, humorous and quirky to challenging and thought provoking.
As well as demonstrating their own interest in animals the artists consider how humanity relates in different ways to the animal world. Attempts to describe and classify sometimes fantastical creatures are examined by Uli Westphal in a range of media. The uncomfortable boundary between being animal or human is explored by Ashley Nieuwenhuizen through print and sculpture. Carole Drake is fascinated by how we use domesticated animals and reveals their useful inner workings by incorporating anatomical diagrams from veterinary textbooks into her paintings. The evolutionary peril of species due to human pressures on the natural world is lightly presented by Gemma Coyle's whirlwind of animal silhouettes. Insects may often be disliked or dismissed but they become creatures of wonder in the intricate sculptures of Nora Fok and the delicate embroideries of Claire Moynihan.
The artists range from recent graduates to the more established and come from Germany and around the UK.
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