 |
| Beef Cutlet 2 Gouache 2009 |
Painter Katy Richards has graciously agreed to share her work and a conversation about it on The Daily Undertaker:
Patrick McNally: Your paintings of meat are beautiful and expressive, but perhaps more importantly, they challenge us to consider our relationship with mortality. While the cuts of meat depicted in your paintings are recognizably from animals bred to be eaten by humans, we know immediately that the meat that comprises our own bodies is almost identical. What drew you to this subject matter?
Patrick McNally: Your paintings of meat are beautiful and expressive, but perhaps more importantly, they challenge us to consider our relationship with mortality. While the cuts of meat depicted in your paintings are recognizably from animals bred to be eaten by humans, we know immediately that the meat that comprises our own bodies is almost identical. What drew you to this subject matter?
Katy Richards: I began making these paintings after watching hunters skin a deer. I watched two men hang two deer from the their garage and cut the skin around the hind legs and then pull. The skin comes off like a glove to reveal glossy cerulean blues, purples, pearly pinks, and bright reds. It was just as beautiful as disturbing, and it triggered me to think about my own thin skin that shields my interior. The experience made me think about my body in a very raw and material way. It stimulated me in thinking that we are all potential carcasses. The notion of death is something that surrounds my work, but its is not my subject. I am much more interested in the body, its boundaries and materiality.
 |
| Meat Secretions Oil 2009 |
PM: Many people, even those who eat meat, are disturbed to think about the origins of their meal. Some even prefer cuts that don’t remind them of the animal’s living form. It’s easier to eat a hamburger and not think of the cow, than ponder the face of a fish, or the ribs of a pig. Beyond sympathy for the animal, does is this aversion stem a way of avoiding the contemplation our own mortal situation?
KR: I find it very disturbing how disconnected people have become to their food, and the whole process of consumption. (When using the word consumption, I’m not thinking of the capitalistic sense of the word, but of the biological. A material being broken down and used up again; a cycle of decay and growth.) I believe that when you look at a fish in the market, one’s whose head is still attached and it’s eyes stare back at you, one can understand that this was a living and breathing creature. But when you see that same kind of fish cut into fish sticks, the contemplation of any life before does not exist. Our culture tries to gloss over the ugly, the decay and the unsettling. The meat is pumped of sodium nitrite turning it bright red so it appears fresh and the women are pumped with botox for the same reasons. These procedures are done to mask the sign of decay to avoid the inescapable.
 |
| Stew Meat 2 Oil 2009 |
PM: Context and perception make a great difference to our experience. A smell or sight of meat that would bring pleasure or stimulate appetite could turn to disgust or discomfort if we learned that the meat came from an animal or a part of an animal that is not associated with food in our culture. Does part of our disgust come from that very possibility of enjoyment?
KR: I suppose it’s like a car crash. You slow down to look at catch the glimpse of the horrendous, but then feel disgusted to admit to yourself why you are slowing down. There is an enjoyment/pleasure in something that is taboo or transgressive because it crosses the boundaries of the everyday.
 |
| Beef Cutlet 4 Gouache 2009 |
PM: Though obviously the substance of a dead animal, the meat in your paintings often looks vibrant and alive. Perhaps we can even imagine a personality in there somewhere. Is this your intention?
KR: My intention was to create something contradictory. Creating vitality through the mark and using bright colors, the depicted body appears lively yet the viewer knows it is dead carcass. I wanted to connect the animal carcass to the human body, by depicting the carcasses in personified postures that allude to the human figure. My intention was not to shock the viewer in looking at something that is dead, but instead for them to draw connections between the materiality of the paint, the carcass and that of the human body.
 |
| Gizzards and Hearts Watercolor, Gouache Acrylic 2009 |
PM: What role do you think art should play in our contemplation of our mortality and our place in this world?
KR: There are numerous possibilities on what role art can play. My work and the work that I am drawn to explore the base and animalistic areas of human experience and impact the viewer on a visceral level. I believe it is important to use art as a way to explore subjects that are overlooked and often repressed in mainstream culture in order to broaden our understanding of our existence.
 |
| Glazed Stew Meat Oil 2010 |
PM: Thank you for sharing your work and your thoughts here! To experience more of Ms. Richards' art, visit her blog
0 comments:
Post a Comment