Reverse Fruit is a work in development being supported by Chunky Move through the Solitude 1 home based residency, during the 2020 Coronavirus lockdowns in Melbourne.
An analogue rendering of the poor image
Dogged refusal of digital predominance over traditional craft
A plan to reconsider fruit
Proof that there’s nothing on God’s green earth that can’t be taxidermed
JBS Chardin and his imputing of life force into still life canvasses
Koshka, my fake Russian Blue cat who was actually an English Grey, who died the day the actual (pictured) fake cats arrived
And to her insistence in burring her head into my open palm, compress the stress
The body language expert’s assertion that ‘any repetitive action is self soothing’, explaining why I wasn’t bored after the hundreds of stitches that produced the reversed fruit.
Labouring over things not for their own sake, but because you’re waiting for things to line up with other things, but you need to create your own line if you want it to align with another.
Cat in Chardin’s The Ray, a taxidermed cat signifying vitality. The obviously dead ray signifying artifice. The hundreds of hours and thousands of strokes that sought to suspend vitality in the paint surface- a losing game that nonetheless produces something.
The different categories of living that are experienced by mammals, fruit, flowers and yeast
Honouring the inherent uniqueness of each organism by examining it, attending to it and, yes, defiling it.
De-centring the humanity from the Tanja Liedtke Foundation funded project which I was engaged in 12 months ago: Geoffrey’s Corps parts 4-5 and 5-5: Violet Spurlock
Point when the minds eye gets cross eyed
Unimpressive pun that ties the work to the lockdown: What is the opposite of a still life?
Still Lives
Still life with active cat
Peeled still life with active cat
Peel still life with active cat
Reversed still life with active cat
Reversed still life with active cat (prepped canvass)
Still life with sleeping and active cats
Peeled still life with sleeping and active cats
Peel still life with sleeping and active cats
Reversed still life with sleeping and active cats
Reversed still life with sleeping and active cats (prepped canvass)
This project will conclude with 2 further manipulations of these objects, an instructional process video, and a written reflection
NB: the work is the objects depicted in these photographs, not the photographs themselves. Please enquire as to purchases, loans and commissions: geoffrey.h.watson@gmail.com
