This is the farewell exhibition for Adelaide Paul who has been a Resident Artist
at The Clay Studio for the last five years. Paul received her BFA from the New
York State College of Ceramics in 1993 and her MFA from Louisiana State
University in 1996. She is a passionate animal rights activist and spent nine
years between high school and her college education working with horses. Her
five dogs and two cats, all rescued from various shelters, are a huge part of
her life. Her relationships with and love for animals have profoundly impacted
her work as is evidenced in the title for her show, which translates from
Italian to anatomies, animals, souls.
Paul's sculptures explore as she puts it, "…the alternately cloyingly
sentimental and brutally callous relationship between humans and animals, both
domesticated and wild." These sensitively articulated and beautifully finished
figures address this dynamic head on yet to do so in a gentle way. Humankind's
relationship to animals, particularly the dog (man's best friend) has played a
vital role in conveying a variety of ideas as evidenced by its representation
throughout the entire history of both the visual and language arts. The figures,
in combination with mixed media and found objects, continue to build on this
tradition, commenting on current, relevant and oftentimes difficult subjects.
Man's inhumanity to man (and animals), gender issues, our disposable and short
attention spanned society, breeding and selective breeding, gluttony and our
need to create hierarchies within our world are fully explored within her work.
These pointed messages are delivered in a masterful way, slowly being absorbed
by the viewer as he/she experiences each piece. They have as critic Glenn Brown
states, "a cool but non-threatening demeanor that, rather than bullying
the viewer into a defensive state, implies respect for his or her capacity to
review and even revise inveterate attitudes and behavior."
"In its extremes, American culture posits an alternately cloying sentimental
and brutally callous relationship between human and both domesticated and wild
animals. Animals are anthromorphized in film, fiction and popular culture. They
(and their requisite accessories) are hot commodities; like all commodities,
they are also inexorably disposable."
"Recently I have been studying (and in the past year, also teaching) the
anatomy of animals. One cannot contemplate the intricacies of consumption
without an acknowlegement of the carnality of desire, be it a desire for
material goods or a wide range of sensual slakings. On a pragmatic level,
rendering an animal (of any species, including our own) accurately on the
outside is vastly facilitated by understanding the organization of the parts on
the inside. But the inside of the body is transgressive; private, frightening,
even revolting to many of us. Meat cuts are trimmed and often dyed like an
expensive haircut, hermetically sealed and given names such as 'bacon'
and 'london broil;' the flesh becomes 'beef' and 'pork,' because 'muscle of cow'
or 'muscle of pig' would likely be off-putting. The epiglottis of the horse
seems more vaginal than the vagina, (perhaps giving an unintended additional
layer of meaning implicit in the 1970's pornography flick Deep Throat).
The muscles of a fresh (unembalmed ) horse leg are a surreal blue-purple;
glistening under an irridescent, translucent faschial sheet. It is strangly
beautiful. Muscle is meat and, on a great many levels, so are we."
"All organisms are dependent upon other species in one way or another;
consumption in every sense of the word is integral to life in western (and,
increasingly, non-weastern) culture. I seek to pose questions to the viewer
regarding these consumer/ consumed/ consummated relationships by juxtaposing
found and fabricated objects evoking multiple possibilites as to just whom is
consumed."
— Adeladie Paul
