Patricia Piccinini Quotes
-
The way we look at nineteenth-century English social realism and appreciate the working classes of the emerging industrial revolution.
→ -
I have been interested in visual arts since high school and, after realising that I had absolutely no interest in the economics degree I had undertaken at ANU, I started a BFA in Sydney which I completed at VCA in Melbourne.
→ -
We always use plywood rather than MDF for structural stuff for the same reasons [stability].
→ -
I tend to work towards specific exhibitions, so there will often be a big push towards the end when we're finishing off a bunch of stuff.
→ -
Ideas rather than methods are central to they way I work, although drawing plays a central generative role in everything I do.
→ -
My practice is focused on bodies and relationships; the relationships between people and other creatures, between people and our bodies, between creatures and the environment, between the artificial and the natural.
→ -
Of course, all my work is photographed and I also take quite a lot of photographs of work in production.
→ -
I certainly don't see the humour in my work as something that detracts from its seriousness. It's just a way of making difficult messages more palatable.
→ -
I finished VCA at the height of the last big recession in the early 90s, and seeing that I was not going to be able to join one of the dwindling number of commercial galleries, I started an ARI called the Basement Project which ran for three years. Things came a little at a time and all of a sudden it's 20 years later and I'm still making art, which is really all I ever wanted to do.
→ -
Now that other people have my works, it's really important to me that what they have has longevity.
→ -
I feel that there's hardly any irony in my work; if there's anything, there'll be sincerity, which people sometimes find hard to deal with.
→ -
Thinking is a social process. I talk to everyone from children to anthropologists and philosophers. I try my ideas out on people and they talk back to you. That's how ideas get formed.
→ -
I am particularly interested in the way that the everyday realities of the world around us change these relations.
→ -
Most of the work I make uses materials that are a bit outside of the traditional fine art world.
→ -
I don't set out to make something that is repulsive and that would scare people. I know that some people don't like what I make, and don't find it cute, but that's hard for me to understand.
→ -
If there are moments in my work when people find joy and humour, that's a real success for me.
→ -
I put a lot of time and thought into my work, which I see as a sort of respect for both the work and the audience, and I have always been very concerned that the materiality of the work reflects that.
→ -
It's interesting to work with what's important today, which is meaningful for our everyday lives.
→ -
I don't think 'Dark Heart' has to be malevolent. It conveys a sense of depth. There is a sense of questioning turmoil.
→ -
In the studio we use a pretty wide range of materials for the sculptures; silicone, fibreglass, human and animal hair, ABS plastic, dental acrylic, traditional and high-tech plasters, stainless steel, automotive paint, plywood, Britannia metal, found objects and taxidermy animals.
→ -
Quality and longevity are the primary criteria, along with repairability and ease of production.
→ -
I think people perceive my creatures as absurd because they look different, but at the same time, they are a little bit familiar. I want people to feel a kind of empathy with them. When you think about it, all nature is kind of strange looking.. in fact, I'm a strange a looking creature.
→ -
Melbourne is a fantastic place to work, but it's not the centre of the world.
→ -
The idea that we can have a new life form, what does it say about the zoo's main purpose, which is to preserve life? What does it say when the artificial and real animal can have the same attraction to people?
→ -
The silicone we use is the hardest, most UV stable we can get, and we have done enormous amounts of testing and research to get a paint solution that is extremely hardy and repairable.
→ -
Artists make worlds for people to walk through.
→ -
Obviously, I don't make an entire edition all at once, so the studio often goes back to produce editions, but that's a bit different. I guess I'm always thinking about the next work.
→ -
Perhaps because of this, many have looked at my practice in terms of science and technology, however, for me it is just as informed by Surrealism and mythology.
→ -
I started thinking of digital imaging, not photography, in 1994 as it seemed the most appropriate way to deal with ideas of biotechnology and advertising. My practice is conceptual.
→ -
The illusion of life is crucial for the work, otherwise the ideas wouldn't be able to jump across, people wouldn't engage with it.
→
Related Authors
-
Cindy Sherman Photographer -
Polixeni Papapetrou Photographer -
Patricia Schroeder Former United States Representative -
Ben Quilty Artist -
Damien Hirst Artist -
Duane Hanson Artist