Art: January 2008 Archives
Perhaps some see it as unusual to have a love of animals while simultaneously harvesting them after death to use in an extraordinary genre of art. To call it the taxidermy renaissance would be tempting, but for Battersea based artist Tom Van Herrewege it isn’t about recreating a trend from the past, it is an intensely personal study into animals - what they mean, how they appear, how they are exhibited and whether death is necessarily their final chapter.
Tom has always been fascinated with animals, proudly nurturing exotic spiders, lizards, praying mantids, snakes and the relatively humble ferret from a young age. Now he intertwines a range of techniques to capture extraordinary concepts, the kind that make you wonder ‘What kind of a person thinks this way, and how did they arrive at this point?’
Tom explains: “I am interested in recontextualising the specimens, totally reconstructing the way we would perceive them in their natural environment, for me they are a base material like any other, from there I try to make a piece of art. The aim of my work is to create all new associations and dialogues. I conceive of a new beast from a piece of nature that in turn is effectively alien to itself when it becomes a piece of art”
Tom’s journey has been a juggling act on a number of fronts, his art being played off constantly against an empty wallet and the constraints of academic structure. Since finishing his art education though he has had a chance to pursue that which compels him most.
He showed me some of his work, and I was taken in by the story of his experiments with Jenny Hanivers, an ancient example of botched taxidermy revived by Tom whereby skate or stingray are dried in the sun and become devilish fiends. The process for creating ‘Jeune de Antwerp’ (later ‘cockneyed’ by British sailors to Jenny Hanivers) was started by the sailors sitting on the docks in Antwerp 400 years ago and carving these ‘mermaids’ out of dried cuttlefish, then preserving them with varnish and selling them on to tourists.
Part of Tom’s fascination is with the cultural associations that have developed over the history of the practice. Since the middle of the 16th century Jenny Hanivers have been responsible for tales of devils, dragons and monsters and this mythical aspect is a great driver enabling the creator to basically play god. To create animals that are almost believable in their new guise is a way for Tom to unite his love of nature and art in “a few simple and quite ugly steps”.
I asked Tom where his thought process was leading him next: “I have been stretching rubber casts of stingray over small diamond shaped canvas's and painting on imagery of Aldrovandi (a 16th century imaginative naturalist) drawings of Jenny Hanivers. This departure is effectively a chronology of Jenny Hanivers - from the original stingray, to the sun-dried ‘devils’, to the early depictions of them as exagerated and grotesque and now off on my own contemporary tangent.”
The technique of stretching the casts over canvas is another stark image that highlights the brutal simplicity and uncomfortable nature of creating art from nature. Tom also asked me to consider some compelling questions about the way in which we exhibit in, for example, museums - art or nature? - a subject Tom has written about extensively, and perhaps one for another day. In the meantime, I’m going to ponder the monstrosity I could create if I sun-dried my neighbour’s yapping chihuahua.
www.tomvanherrewege.com
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But we still associate the technology with the spaces of travel. That’s why Troika, the Russian art collective with studios in London, chose to use it for the new installation in the atrium hall at Terminal 5, Heathrow, entitled Cloud. Prepare to be mesmerised:
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It was no statue, no monument, no model. It was flesh and bone: 18 hands of taut muscle and sculpted flanks, such was the way this horse moved. Yet, flicking his tail and twitching his ears as if troubled by flies, this was a horse made of wood, a fragile and skeletal cane frame, bent round plywood and bound by twine. It could trot and gallop, bolt and rear, and, with aluminium spinal structures, it could comfortably carry a man as well. But it wasn’t just that he (a stallion named Joey) could do all these things which enthralled; it was how he did them, how he breathed, how he shivered with fear, bent down to feed, and kicked against the stable with his hind legs when cornered by men he did not trust. Operated by three puppeteers, two inside moving the main body and legs with another outside overseeing the head and neck, the audience was invited to fill in the gaps, to forget the wood, and instead fall heart first into a story of a young boy separated from his horse by The War. That’s the thing with puppets. In communicating ideas and stories that real people and animals can’t touch, those watching are forced to turn to their own imaginations to complete what they see. And in the imagination, what we see and feel can be so much more moving than any black and white tale that allows for no interpretation whatsoever. You feel involved, a part of the action.
To even imagine, in the first place, bringing Michel Morpurgo’s classic children’s tale, War Horse, to the stage would be one thing; going ahead with it and pulling it off as the Handspring Puppet Company have done with the National Theatre is quite another.
If you can find tickets, go. If not, try again.
And while on the subject of puppets, perhaps some of you missed this extraordinary piece of puppetry from the Royal de Luxe theatre company last year:
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No, not a Facebook wall, but this year’s Diesel Wall. The popular art competition is set to launch again for 2008 with Diesel already laying down the gauntlet on their wall website. And this year there will be a UK wall - in Manchester - so all you budding British artists need to get your thinking caps on with a view to submitting your entries. There’s no entry form just yet but keep your eyes peeled. It’s a unique opportunity to get your work seen on a massive scale. And besides the wall in Manchester, there will be spaces in Barcelona, New York and Zurich, too.
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Diggy. Strange name that, but a cool one nonetheless. Diggy Smerdon’s dad certainly thought so. So sure was he that his daughter would grow up to be a blues singer called ‘Diggy Malone’ that he coined it just for her. And it stuck. Or at least the Diggy part did.
But Diggy Smerdon isn’t a blues singer. So who the hell is she? Well, Diggy is a 21 year-old artist and illustrator living in Falmouth, Cornwall, and what’s more, she lives above a Cornish pasty shop. Does it get any better than that, drawing, painting and eating pasties? I can’t imagine it does, but then, as a self-confessed lover of pasties, I’m slightly biased. When I asked Diggy what it’s like to be so fortunate, I sense the pasty thing might not matter to her quite as much as it would to me; too much of a good thing and all that: “There’s no better alarm clock than the wafting aroma of a Cornish pasty drifting through one’s window each morning. Sadly, yes, this is what gets me up, but I guess it beats the buzz of a wretched alarm clock.” Damn right it does.
The fact is, though, even if you do live above a pasty shop, the life of an artist is rarely easy. Through the years, the image has something of a cliche bordering on myth: no money, overcoats wrapped tight to keep out the cold, nowhere to sleep, forever having to swim against more powerful forces. Often you have to cut off an ear just to call yourself an artist. Of course, more often than not there’s an element of truth in such myths, and that’s certainly the case here: it can be tough working as an artist, particularly when you are just starting out, as Smerdon is now.
“The plan was to become a graphic designer. I left school to get a graphic design diploma and then made it to the University College Falmouth down by the sea. But while my fellow designers played in grids, I found myself doodling in lectures. Eventually it became a problem for me and I had to take a break. So here I am now - no grids, no branding, just pen on paper every day, all day. I’ve never been happier.”
I wonder if, because of the inherent difficulties in being a young artist, she ever questions her decision to pursue her art full time without the securities that a steady income can provide. Her answer is inevitable and, I think, symptomatic of anyone pursuing a creative occupation. Yes, there will times when you think you are shit, but then “obsession isn’t something you can just stop and switch off. So I pick up my pen and carry on again.” Determination, it seems, plays a key role in any artistic success.
Each of her works is characterised most obviously by her use of line, born of a continued allegiance to a trusty black pen. This is what struck me first and prompted me to make contact with Diggy. I found all her pictures striking, beautifully conceived and, above all, honest. You might put her in the school of Andre Masson, whose automated drawings of the 1920s were intended to represent the true workings of the subconscious - perhaps the highest form of honesty. Smerdon is pursuing something similar in her works: “Certainly the process is being free and letting my subconscious form something visual. What I draw is beyond my mind and thoughts. I do get a little surprised by what I draw sometimes, but that’s half the reason I can’t stop because I never know what I’ll see on the paper next.”
You can find out for yourself at her next show in Falmouth - details to follow. In in the meantime, check her website for more images and additional information on a young artist with, we think, a big future ahead of her.
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