Pigs, orangutans, flying foxes and wedge-tailed eagles all play a role – as do wombats, wallabies and honey-eaters – in the creation of Patricia Piccinini’s lifelike and spellbinding sculptures. Now her family of ‘creatures’ is about to star in a solo blockbuster exhibition at Australia’s Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art, along with two major new commissions.
“Almost all of my works are inspired by real animals,” she says. “I want them to sit on the edge of credibility, almost believable, almost familiar but totally strange. By the same token, there exists in the real world animals that are much stranger than anything I could think of, so in some ways my own strangeness is actually a bit constrained.”
Piccinini describes exhibition Curious Affection – which includes 15 years of existing work along with new commissions – as “complex and ambitious”. As well as a giant inflatable, there will be an immersive installation.
“The show draws together the various strands of my practice and attempts to weave a sensuous and engaging environment,” she says. “This world is simultaneously odd and familiar, and looks at the various relationships that have animated my practice since the beginning: the relationship between people and the environment; the artificial and the natural; between
bodies and objects.”
Where: GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane)
When: 24 March- 5 August, 2018
Visit www.qagoma.qld.gov.au for more information
