Monday 15 September 2008

The Year of the Rat: Illustrators Australia 2008 entry

Above: this year's theme for the Illustrators Australia 9 x 5 Exhibition is The Year of the Rat. I had previously been thinking of making an artwork showing an innocent little lab rat cut open to display a very beautiful and glamorous version of his innards. (Perhaps it would be a way to restore his dignity.) At the time it was influenced by a a piece by Del Kathryn Barton which I had seen at Linden. It was a stuffed bird made of fabric, with disarmingly human-like eyes and it was covered in hundreds of old buttons. I liked how the 'real' eyes played against the crafty notions. When I received my annual piece of plywood and the accompanying theme and entry form, I thought: here's my chance. I like innards you see. I think they are rather beautiful, especially the versions that you find illustrated in mid century school books. But real ones are pretty as well.

Ha! As I wrote that I just thought of a title: Many Treasures Rat.

3 comments:

hopeful~ for happy said...

For months I've been checking back to see nothing new, and suddenly you smack us with all this new work. Love the jewelled innards-I think they're pretty too. Missed you!

~ Tracy

Sandra Eterovic said...

Hi Tracy,
SOOOOO good to hear from you. Your blog is beautiful, I am going to show it to my VM colleagues, they'll love it too.
And I love the way you write. Yippee! Good to hear from you. When can we catch up??

Jason Parkinson said...

You have so much on this. I just signed up, I need a web page for my film & tv design work so thought I would start with this. The rat looks ace. JP