taxidermy – ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon

Harriet Horton: Sleep Subjects

Repulsed by the fusty impala torsos procured by macho trophy-hunting and goths shrinking squirrel heads to wear on velvet necklaces alike, taxidermist Harriet Horton has gone on her own way. Strictly ethical about procuring already deceased animals, she takes regular trips to her parental home in near-rural Stratford-Upon-Avon and makes use of a deep-freezer in her east London home.

Horton’s approach to taxidermy has always set out to explore animals in a foreign environment from their original habitat. The animals are stuffed, dyed then positioned on marble and concrete plinths, lit by luminescent halos of neon. The site-specific installations are then soundtracked with eerie industrial-classical music. Horton’s 2015 “Sleep Subjects” exhibition, shown in a crypt in Euston, was very successful.

“I was playing around with different aesthetics and thought of incorporating neon. When I used it, I realised its warm temperature and how relaxing it feels. It changes both your mood and that of the piece, and it makes the taxidermy less about death. I really don’t like the gothic side of taxidermy, it’s not for me. So instead I’ll place a magpie under simple white neon arc and the wings are down but the body’s curved perpendicular to the neon. It’s surreal but unless you know a lot about ornithology it wouldn’t look very weird; it’s just a subtle change to its posture.”- harriet Horton

Sculptures and Installations by Julien Salaud

In Julien Salaud’s work there is a whole pantheon filled with animals depicted in different ways, such as drawing, etching and sculpture. It is generally accepted that his work examines the connections between man and animal. That is indeed one side of his work, but transformation is really the core of it: wood animals skins or insects turning into something else with additional beads, nails, feathers or rhinestone.

Over the last year, French artist Julien Salaud has installed several new works as part of his “Stellar Cave” series involving elaborate thread drawings illuminated by ultraviolet light. The polygonal depictions of people, animals, and zoomorphic figures are meant to evoke the idea of star constellations with allusions to mythology and mysticism. Salaud works with cotton thread coated in ultraviolet paint wrapped around precisely placed nails on ceilings or gallery walls. One of his largest installations, Stellar Cave IV, was recently on view at the Hezliya Museum of Contemporary Art.

Julien Salaud lives and works in Orléans – France. He is represented by Suzanne Tarasiève art gallery in Paris.