Sitting on a bench are two naked figures. One is asleep, curled up, her body language suggesting an anxiety temporarily on hold. Right now, she’s safe, head resting on the lap of her companion who keeps watch, wearily and fretfully. They look completely real and yet impossible. Both are human, almost, but for the faces that stretch into snouts, the elongated feet, and spines that continue as tails.
This is While She Sleeps by acclaimed Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, the work sitting in the heart of her Collingwood studio. They’re chimeras – part human, part thylacine, “which we hunted to extinction because we thought they were killing sheep”, she says.
Artist Patricia Piccinini in her Melbourne studio.Credit: Paul Jeffers
Piccinini’s creations have been exhibited across the world. As an artist, she takes mutimedia to new heights, quite literally, with her art ranging from hyperrealistic sculptures to paintings to her Skywhales – a family of hot air balloon creatures. In 2003, she represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale. Now she has stepped into a new role at RMIT School of Art, where she has just been appointed professor of practice.
There, Piccinini will collaborate with staff and students in a role spanning teaching and research. Her role is part of the Planetary Civics Inquiry, an initiative that aims to shift societal ideas about existential issues, including the climate emergency, bringing together thinkers across disciplines.
In her work, Piccinini bridges gaps – between man-made objects and the natural world, between the real and imagined, between science and art. Figures embrace and hold one another. Mothers and children, friends and lovers. Warmth and tenderness passes between different species and barriers break down.
The works provide “a safe space to think about how you feel about difference”, she says. “A lot of people think, ‘Oh, why do you put these things out in the world that are not natural? Why are you trying to shock us?’ I’m not trying to shock anyone – I think they’re all really beautiful. I only put things out into the world that are beautiful, and for me, this is admirable. This [the figures depicted in her works] is who I want to be. I want this connection in my life.”
We do this othering all the time. We do it to other people.
Patrica Piccinini
A core idea that Piccinini interrogates is the mental remove society has between the man-made world and nature. This gap, she argues, makes it easier for us as a society to believe that harm to the natural world doesn’t impact us. “It’s a way for us to feel fine about what we decide and feel immune – but it’s not the case.”
On While She Sleeps, “the reason we hunted these thylacines to extinction is because we othered them, and we said they’re not worthy of our consideration – they don’t have souls, they don’t go to heaven, they’re just animals, so let’s just get rid of them. And that’s how we can do it. It’s brutally violent othering. And we do this othering all the time. We do it to other people.”
