(for those who have not met me, that’s me on the right)

Animals and why I paint them.

The first recorded cave paintings are of animals and stick figures of those who hunted them, they were perhaps painted because of the significant importance they were for survival.

That relationship continuously changed as animals were domesticated, used for entertainment, sport and harnessed for work and each change has been documented through art. Today our past bonds with animals are very different to than of even recent history, meat is processed in factories, wildlife television coverage with powerful zoom lenses offers us views of animals we would never experience in life, very few circuses’ now use animals, and we embrace cats and dogs passionately as part of the family. (1)

Looking at animals I see understand better what marks me out as human but it also leads me to question the concept of anthropomorphism that attributes human values to animals. I believe most non human animals, especially those closely associated with humans in social settings actually feel longing, loneliness, loss, unhappiness, feel pleasure, enjoy companionship and experience happiness to some extent, and whilst these feeling may manifest themselves in ways we recognise as human it is perhaps the case that these feelings and emotions are not exclusively human but experiences felt by all sentient being to some degree.

Animals in law are treated as objects, they have no rights, but in 2014 the Nonhuman Rights Project (2) brought a case to court in New York about ‘Tommy’ a chimpanzee, kept in a cage in a Manhattan warehouse to try to establish rights for ‘Tommy’ they lost the case but will appeal, as the lawyer put it, the chimp has no more rights than a table or a chair. This would seem intuitively wrong but how one protects and defends animals and if they were extended rights is difficult to see who would bring a case as an animal could not do this. (3)

More recently this year The Nonhuman Rights Project brought another case to court on behalf of two chimpanzees Leo and Hercules used for medical experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island. For the first time in US history, a judge has granted two chimpanzees a petition – through human attorneys – to defend their rights against unlawful imprisonment, allowing a hearing on the status of “legal persons” for the primates.(4). In all journeys many steps are required but this for me is one of those memorable steps. The next hearing on Leo and Hercules’s appeal is to be held on May 27^th 2015.

Leonardo Da Vinci in the 15^th century said “I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.”  

Now Leonardo seems to have given up meat at an early age, myself, sadly I have only come to this standpoint at the age of 63, this short statement highlights a small segment of my personal life journey to a ‘place’ where I am comfortable, why I draw and paint animals and it works for me. It is not a plea to “convert the wicked” so if you are tucking into a Chicken Madras, Beef Bourguignon or a Lamb Casserole tonight, Bon appetite!

As you enjoy them, a thought to ponder, how we treat animals is a mark of our humanity.

References:

1. Synopsis of a section from an essay “Why look at animals” by John Berger.
2. http://www.nonhumanrightsproject.org/
3. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/04/new-york-court-rules-that-tommy-the-chimp-is-not-a-person/
4. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/21/chimpanzees-granted-legal-persons-status-unlawful-imprisonment

External Space l and ll

Movement, Memory and Space.

Locating myself in a space is much easier when movement is involved, that movement can be your own or something else also within the space you are at the time, but also involved is memory as we record previous positions or movements which deteriorate quickly in the memory remaining only long enough for us to calculate our relationship to other objects or people in a space.

The two works ‘External Space’ were created using these three elements, movement through perceived altered image size as something moves away  or towards you, the loss of memory of earlier images of the movement or relationship to a stationary object as the mind concentrates on the current situation. The drawings below are early sketches which demonstrate the idea.

These drawings were made from watching people and so were very rapid sketches, they are manipulated in that I returned to the images after they were initially made and exaggerated the definition in the final images with darker lines to convey time and so movement in the drawings.

One unintentional thing that came out of the drawings was a sense of rhythm through the recording of the movements.

The actual paintings were the first I made on voile which is a fine lining fabric which is coated with rabbit skin glue then primed.

I choose to use blue greys because I felt strong colours would detract from the three elements I was exploring and concentrated on the perceived size differences and the vagueness of outline. The impression of space follows.

Both paintings  External Space l and ll can be seen in Page 4 Abstracts and geometric located under the Blog title.

I have been coming back to this regularly for half an hour at a time over the last couple of months and finally got to where I am happy with it.

This latest work is titled ‘Partridges rising above Slash Hollow’. It is in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, behind the trees on the top left is ‘Snipe Dales’ nature reserve. As with the historical uncertainty of these things ‘Slash Hollow’ may well be behind the location of the viewer, it is know as ‘Slash Hollow’ because some retreating Royalists were killed or captured when they became trapped against a parish boundary gate that only opened one way (against them) and in their panic the press of men jammed it shut, allowing the Parliamentarians time to finish off or capture many Royalists.

I am interested in the influence the landscape we live in exerts upon us and as a Scot who has live in the area for the last 25 years such historical sites still inspire me. When I was up there making a couple of sketches I startled a pair of nesting partridges, hence the title.