EXPANDED LABEL: 2021.125 DREW
By Victoria Wareham
‘Still Life Now’ October 2022
The photograph Possum with five birds echoes the tone of paintings made in the still-life tradition to explore contemporary relations to native animals killed through the expansion of urbanisation in Australia. The animals featured — destroyed either by introduced predators, land-clearing, urban development or as roadkill — are then collected by Drew and placed alongside embroidered fabrics, fine china, candles, fruits and vegetables. By positioning the animals amongst these domestic objects, the space between the human world and the animal world is reduced; emphasising the ethical responsibility that humans have to the animals that share our environments. In this still-life arrangement, they remind us of the cost of urbanisation to wild animals and of humans’ ever-changing relationship with nature.
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