The term non-human could be labelled as something as simple as “anything that isn’t a human.” This idea, however, has been in many modern contexts been rethought into something that may not be human but in some way mirrors the human for example animals and technology.
Inspired by the relationship between the human and non-human, the work questions this relationship, explores consumerism, materiality and how this, in turn, shapes our natural world. especially in relation to how we as humans “sell” the natural environment as an extension of ourselves.
There is something about the plastic glad wrap that resonates with the materialistic world, and body modification. Plastic is a non human material created by humans to encase the natural products; in this case meat. The human body being placed and packaged into a materialistic environment, raw meets plastic. I believe the work places both subjects the meat and a human in the same category of raw meat, by stripping the identity of the body in the photos, reducing them to their natural form in the now modified environment.
I enjoy the rawness of the photos therefore did not want to edit them too much they were already so powerful. I was originally going to play with the images by transferring them onto plastic however i like the clarity of the photographs themselves. I chose to encase the works in perspex frames as they are photographs frozen in time and encased in a clear yet inescapable frame. The perspex is also enforcing the idea of plastic and human creation that now holds the natural. The combination of flesh and meat, creates these crisp but abstract-seeming works.
My initial ideas and thoughts came from the inspiration of artist 1“Lucie Stahl”l. Her work involves lots of layering of found objects including food, liquids and lots of interesting material to form beautiful layers of work. In particular i loved her work that were ink jet prints they are so powerful and crisp. This form of art inspired me to look into another form of photography (using a scanner) where i could achieve layering of objects and the human body. My test shots really surprised me as they turned out so well and in really great quality as i was using an at home scanner. I started off with just scans of the face and hands and then this lead me to incorporate meat as i thought it would look quite interesting and grotesque on the scanner.
I love the work of 2”Mattieu Bourel”, incorporating surreal collages and photographs of the human form and mostly faces. His works inspired the connection i wanted to create from the camera/scanner to the human as a lot of his works there is a sense of unawareness in the face which i believed i captured. It also inspired the sense of identity loss through almost masking the face and blindfolding the the eyes to strip all features that create ones identity. I chose to use meat as it is highly consumed good and has no identity when it is all chopped up and sold. I wanted to place the human in the same situation where they have been packaged up and sealed in plastic. The plastic representing the materialism and consumable aspect to the non human, human creation. Humans are nothing but a product of their own environment.
1 dependance, 2017, viewed 29 August 2017, http://www.dependance.be/artists/lucie-stahl/
2 S, Barnes, ‘Surreal Collages of Vintage Portraits by Matthieu Bourel’, 17 November 2017, viewed on 29 August 2017 , http://mymodernmet.com/matthieu-bourel-duplicity-serie-collage/
dependance, 2017, viewed 29 August 2017, http://www.dependance.be/artists/lucie-stahl/
Barnes, S, ‘Surreal Collages of Vintage Portraits by Matthieu Bourel’, 17 November 2017, viewed on 29 August 2017 , http://mymodernmet.com/matthieu-bourel-duplicity-serie-collage/
Chan S, ‘Matthieu Bourel’s Surreal Collages Are Quietly Strange, Beautiful/Decay’, 2016, viewed 1 September 2017, http://beautifuldecay.com/2014/12/17/matthieu-bourels-surreal-collages-quietly-strange
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