In The World – Douglas Gearhart

This work is part of a line of pieces called Intrude, created by the Australian artist Amanda Tarer. One thing I enjoy about these pieces as Amanda mentions, is the “huggability” of the work. Despite the medium of an inflated plastic (I think), it somehow maintains the soft and fluffy look that we attribute to bunnies. I also love how I can see the connection between the pieces of the rabbit because it offers insight on how the variety of body language expressions were created. One of my interests going forward in the class is to made animals and this is a valuable reference for me to understand how simple shapes can be to still create extremely recognizable if not realistic forms.

Interestingly enough, this exhibit was displayed here in Pittsburgh for the previous week in the cultural district. The message explored is how the “elephant in the room” can be so easily disregarded. These are bunnies – cute fairytale creatures and despite the sheer magnitude (some being around 50ft tall) the audience still passes by without a sense of threat. This can represent the greatest challenges we face such as our environmental impact, similar to how in Australia, rabbits are a non-native species that has severely damaged the ecological landscape.

Work can be explored here and here.

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