Title
Creation Date
2015
Preview
Medium
acrylic and oil paint on modeling paste, plaster, and silicone with found objects
Description
Dimensions: 108 x 212 x 95 inches
Rights
© Dani Marie Lee, 2015. Photo Credit: Allison Corona.
Keywords
contemporary, realistic, American culture, hybridism, critical thinking, people
Artist Statement
Animals have been consumed, controlled and depreciated by humans for our entire existence. They are thought of as objects, merely for human enjoyment and consumption; slaughtered and made into pieces of meat. This body of work represents the mass production, consumption and obsession with meat in our culture. I have created Meat Obsessed, an installation of an interior living room space by using found objects and modifying them. I am inspired by Sue Coe’s conceptual ideas and passion for exposing the tragedies of slaughterhouses, and I am influenced by Robert Gober’s use of found objects, transformations and installation of specific environments.
Mass produced and packaged meat is broken down so far from the animal it once was, made into specific shapes, renamed, and sold in large quantities for mass consumption. I am interested in creating conversation about where this meat originates, and the process that takes place in the transformation from living animal to an edible meal. Humans are extremely desensitized and refuse to recognize the horrible suffering that animals go through, simply for their own satisfaction. This work aims to bring that forgotten reality to light.
By combining representations of raw meat and a domestic space, I’ve created tension between the elegant decorations of the home life and the gruesome reality of what meat truly is. This installation consists of small paintings of steaks and lamb chops integrated onto a floral patterned wallpaper, a chair transformed into a large marbled raw steak through the use of an impasto paint surface, sculptures of chicken legs implanted into a side table, a lamp with painted bacon across the shade, and various other objects common to a home. All are used precisely to create an uncomfortable, immersive, abject installation of a beautiful and unappetizing meat-obsessed world.