Patricia Piccinini
Patricia Piccinini (born 1965 in Freetown, Sierra Leone) is an Australian artist who works in a variety of media, including painting, video, sound, installation, digital prints, and sculpture.
In 2016 The Art Newspaper named Piccinini with her "grotesque-cum-cute, hyper-real genetics fantasies in silicone" the most popular contemporary artist in the world after a show in Rio de Janeiro attracted over 444,000 visitors.
‘The Mutant Genome Project’ (1995),[9] features commercially available designer babies called LUMP (Lifeform with Unevolved Human Properties).
Specific works have addressed concerns about biotechnology, such as gene therapy and ongoing research to map the human genome... she is also fascinated by the mechanisms of consumer culture.
'The Long-Awaited' (2008)[1] was a later work attempting to explore the theme of empathy through a lifelike sculpture of a child cradling a manatee-human hybrid.
The ABC described the work as a "hot air balloon in the shape of a tortoise-like animal featuring huge dangling udders made from four hectares of nylon".
[14] The budget for the project was $300,000 and has been the subject of comments made by ACT Chief Ministers Jon Stanhope and Andrew Barr.
[18][19] "Graham", a lifelike, interactive sculpture, highlights how vulnerable the human body is to the forces involved in auto accidents.
"[21] The joint exhibition 'Patricia Piccinini & Joy Hester Through Love ...' at TarraWarra Museum of Art included a new site specific work 'Sanctuary': combining a sculpture of a pair of embracing anthropomorphic bonobo figures of silicone, fibreglass and hair; with a drawing on paper and digital wall print of multiple human limbs forming a horizon.
In 2019, the National Gallery of Australia with the assistance of the Balnaves Foundation commissioned Skywhalepapa for the Skywhales: Every Heart Sings project.
[22] As part of the inaugural Rising Festival, Piccinini created the exhibition "A Miracle Constantly Repeated", which was her first extensive hometown show in almost two decades.
Taking place in the Flinders Street station ballroom, and consisting of a combination of hyper-real silicone sculptures, dioramas, video, sound and light, the exhibition explores humanity’s relationship to technology and the environment, and conveys Piccinini's empathetic vision of a future built on resilience and care.
The grotesque visuals and themes offer a sense of fantasy; the controversial world she created encourages viewers to think.
In an interview with Jaklyn Babington, formerly Senior Curator at the National Gallery of Australia, Piccinini stated that she is "incredibly interested in nurturing and care and the way that has been marginalised as 'women's work' in patriarchal society.
"[30] and her engagement with issues such as cross-species relationships: "Given the current state of the planet, in which political leaders are allowing the most blatant forms of racism and ethnic tension to become normalised, Piccinini's interspecies fantasies seem horribly far-fetched.
Green reasoned that by creating an intriguing narrative Piccinini was able to make hyperrealism appealing to the general audience.
Her work affirms that posthuman ideology and femininity is liberation from modern practices such as genetic engineering and animal farms.
