ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I question the disparity between the dominant images of animals we see and create and the reality of the horrors non-humans endure at our hands. Animals, unlike people, can neither defend themselves exactly nor be empowered to argue for different representations within human culture. However, I believe that animals have a right to be described, illustrated, and documented in ways that do not rely on destructive stereotypes or practices that diminish them.

Furthermore, I believe that we, the story makers and image makers have a responsibility toward the animals whose likenesses we use. If we use animals and their image to tell our stories and profit from them, we are obliged through respect, compassion and gratitude to be sure we speak for them too.

My book and work have emerged from a growing awareness of literary and figurative distortions of animals, and the repetition and reinforcement of belief systems through culture, particularly through our childhood. I want to change how we speak of animals, and I want to join the voices speaking for them, nature, and the planet.

I am interested in animal rights, the human-animal relationship and how culture teaches us what that relationship is. Specifically, I am interested in the role of the illustrator and illustration and how picture books fit into the persistence of the existing understanding of the relationship between humans and non-humans. For example, consider the ever-present cute images of farm animals and how those images persist ideas within a cultural understanding and then consider how those messages differ from reality. Even within the realms of visual creativity and imagination, I think about how illustration perpetuates existing ideas and belief systems.

I have an MA (Distinction) in Visual Communication (Illustration) where I focussed on the visual representation of animals.