Thursday 31 October 2013

Elephant in the room

Looking around at elephants and popular culture, I remembered this work by our favourite son of Bristol, Banksy. 
Exhibited as part of Barely Legal, a live elephant was hand painted in a pink and gold chintz motif echoing the wallpaper of the room in which it was allowed to roam free during the show. 'Elephant in the room' is a metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is either being ignored or going unaddressed. In this case Banksy aims to draw public attention to world poverty.

Barely Legal. Los Angeles 2006
   













This unsettling transposition of an instantly recognisable pattern onto an incongruous object, holds a resonance with the use of the traditional willow pattern in my current work.




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