Sunday 21 April 2013

The disturbingly beautiful sculpture of Patricia Piccinini

Somewhere between horror movie monster, biological specimen and fine art, there's Australian artist Patricia Piccinini.



The models are extraordinarily realistic, which adds to their strangeness.



 
 
Personally I love them. What she's doing, of course, is showing us that anything that challenges our perceptions of 'normal' can seem grotesque and uncomfortable.
 



There's a lot more of her work on her website here.

1 comment:

  1. True art inspires the mind to higher things, while perfect art reflects the Source of Goodness Truth and Beauty itself, namely God. Thus everyone is naturally attracted to the beauty of a pristine forest and a spectacular sunset; while everyone recoils at the spoiled nature of a polluted environment which kills life. In a sense, some of these sculptures do present the reality of monstrosities found in nature, which are often the result of spoiled nature--something good that has been distorted by disease or some destructive outside agent. I suppose someone could make sculptures of human excrement and weave meaning out of it, and if someone wants to call it art, I would qualify it as bad art, for the same reason that polluted sunset does not inspire. This artist's work is certainly good craft in the sense that the she knows how to use tools to masterfully manipulate materials as any craftsman can; but it is bad art in the sense that it fails miserably to please. Is art always supposed to please? I would say that good art always inspires the human intellect to goodness, truth and beauty. There's harmony and then there's noise. Interestingly, some humans choose to bring beauty, goodness and joy into the world, while others choose to bring distortion, pollution and destruction of goodness itself..

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