Last year i entered the Hutchins Works on Paper Art Prize and whilst i didn’t win the prize, the Hutchins school did buy the work i entered for their collection which i was very happy about! Subsequent to this i was contacted by a young student there by the name of Dustin Watson. Dustin is interested in exploring similar ideas to do with our problematic attitude towards animals and has recently sent me this image of his final work for year 12. It is a large work comprising 6 linocuts that piece together to create a complete picture. The individual pieces are around 600mm x 450mm each.
It is a wonderfully detailed work and the narrative provokes questions about our attitude towards animal suffering in relation to hunting. In the image, a deer runs through a clearing in the forest, unharmed, but the hunter in the foreground, who has attempted to disguise himself as a deer, has been pierced by the arrow of another hunter further away and appears to suffer a mortal wound. We are asked to question how we feel about this. Do we feel more empathy and sympathy for the injured hunter than we might for a wounded deer? If so why, when in fact the deer is innocent and the hunter is a determined killer. Kill and be killed. Is this the karma suggested here? Well done Dustin!
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