I find these imperfect creatures seem to express a more intimate and emotional face. Farm animals with physical defects that have no commercial value have become important resources for my artwork. ![]() As a subject in my work, I have come to understand the lifeless creatures as icons of the merging of birth and death. Every lambing season, along with the hundreds of healthy births, there are a number of stillborn lambs and several with defects such as hermaphrodism and "stargazers" (a lamb with rigid muscles that force their heads to look skywards). Because of my slender arms and hands, my father began asking me at around the age of twelve to assist with the birthing of lambs. I am deeply informed by my own tending of the animals throughout their natural life cycles. I have used recycled agricultural waste such as tulip petals and pigments and visceral remains of cows and sheep as models for drawings and castings. In this recent body of work the plants and animals of our farm have become the physical materials of my sculptures. Since my childhood, my father has been an enormous tutor in pastoralism and its seasons of birth and decay. We raise flowers for bulbs, tend 50 head of dairy cattle for cheese production, and tend a herd of 300-500 sheep. In Holland ours is a medium-sized "mixed" farm. ![]() ![]() My work is a reflection of the experiences I have had around my parents' farm in the Netherlands.
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