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Beastliness 2011

Accession No.
2011.263
Date Created
2011
Department
Contemporary Australian Art
Edition
ed. 2/8
Media Category
Electronic media
Secondary Media Category
digital file
Medium
Digital animation shown as HD projection, DVD, 16:9, 3:17 minutes, colour, sound
Animation: Christian Heinrich and Chris Wilson
Original score written and produced by Brutal Poodles
Audio mastering: Steve Smart
Credit Line
Purchased 2011. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation

Beastliness

takes as many aesthetic cues from MTV as it does from photomontage pioneer Hannah Hoch and other proponents of early twentieth-century European Dada. Kelly’s uncanny fusion of animals, insects and women placed in a world of frenzied dancing presents a bacchanalian fantasy in the form of a cultural critique. Feathers fly as the creatures consume each other in a conclusion that formally resembles an ouroboros — the ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail, representing the circle of life and, in some contexts, immortality.

By remythologising femininity, Deborah Kelly considers stereotypes and other expectations that can demonise difference. Challenging stable notions of gender, the artist stands against any rhetoric that aims to divide and control us by proposing a predefined ‘normality’. Her strategy is to embrace diversity: these creatures represent many female forms, thoughts and experiences, and celebrate acceptance and freedom of expression.

Stories and essays featuring this object

KELLY, Deborah; Beastliness

For several years, Deborah Kelly has been cutting up diverse magazines to create collages that amalgamate the feminine and the grotesque, spawning mythical hybrid beings that are fantastic in every…

Read KELLY, Deborah; Beastliness in full

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