Meet the creator
Dr Vanessa Maree Barbay
Artist · Vincentia, Australia
During my PhD I developed a new process allowing dead animals to represent themselves by decomposing on canvas. Purification is a key component enabling works to become unique, collectable, fossil-like evidence of individuals. Works feature painted representations of subjects post-decomposition consisting of bitumen and oils (material signs of the anthropocene) embedded in a ground painted with collected earth pigments (material signs of Aboriginal custodians of country). The coexistence of this cultural dialectic in Australia and its impact on animals is my core conceptual concern.
Statement
My father was a taxidermist and formative participation in his studio work and subsequent experience of his home natural history museum impacted my painting practise once I began university studies. Beginning with expressive oil representations of mummified bodies in his collection and evolving into practise-led research which deconstructed taxidermy by allowing bodies to decompose on canvas. The resulting 'shroud' provides another type of physical evidence of the individual body, enabling it to represent itself as a unique stain. Additional painted elements constitute a conversation with the bodily stain and the erupted appearance of the decomposing body.