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Sunday 27 July 2014

Irish pigs I

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.
Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.
Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass.
280mm x 300mm.



Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass.
280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.

Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass.
280mm x 300mm.


Ann-Marie Tully, Irish pigs I, ceramic, cobalt oxide, mirror, glass. 280mm x 300mm.


































































































































































































































































































The Irish pigs series (2014) of cobalt oxide-painted ceramic pig sculptures reflects on the obscuration of animal beings in human visual culture. The choice of pigs as an ‘animal-ground’ to paint onto is informed by human indifference and repulsion towards these farmed animals – a position that allows for the conscience-free consumption of pork. The prevalence of pigs in art historical iconography is also a point of departure. The ceramic pig that the works are based on is an ornamental piece striking in its ‘benevolent’ anthropomorphic characteristics. This domestication of the animal is a phenomenon associated with decorative and illustrative representations of animals, serving to obscure the real creature. The slip-casting seams of the ceramic sculpture are not removed from the sculptural form, thereby interrupting a ‘smooth’ transition from the animal-in-the-world into the realm of human consumption. The decorative cobalt oxide painting on the frog-surfaces references the Willow, Oriental and Delft ceramic traditions that frequently employ nature motifs.

Thematically these works reference the assassination of Lord Mountbatten by the Irish Republican Army, after which Princess Anne was overheard saying ‘those Irish pigs’. This scorn for and reduction of the Irish ‘to the level of pigs’ is a long-standing European tradition. The works also reference the Kennedy dynasty – the tragic Irish ‘Camelot’. Artworks by artists of Irish origin such as James Abbott McNeill Whistler are referenced; as well as artworks by artists who courted controversy and were scorned and maligned (such as Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet and Amedeo Clemente Modigliani); also referencing artists who have used pig bodies and iconography in their artwork such as Wim Delvoye. Sources relating to the potato famines and the mass Irish immigrations that followed are juxtaposed with images drawn from photographs of my Irish immigrant families (Tully and McCarthy) who came to South Africa. The South African experiences and liminal identities of these Irish ancestors is considered in these works, which also allude to the colonial legacy in Africa that reduced human beings ‘to the level of animals’ – posing the rhetorical question: could the reduction of otherness exist without the category of the animal.


1 comment:

  1. They are beautiful AnnMarie.
    Ha...one of these days I will make art again.
    All this flippin darkness to wade through.

    ReplyDelete