Mark Fairnington History Fairnington Mark Unnatural

Mannheimer Kunstverein Mark Fairnington Galerie Peter Zimmermann

Mannheimer Kunstverein / Galerie Peter Zimmermann / Peter Galerie Mannheimer Kunstverein Unnatural History Mark Fairnington Unnatural History

1 Mark Fairnington Unnatural History

2 3 Published on the occasion of 6 The Observing Eye Unnatural History 8 Das beobachtende Auge

at Mannheimer Kunstverein and Galerie Peter Zimmermann 11 Specimens

in February 2012 29 Paradise Birds 22 Interview with Darian Leader by Mannheimer Kunstverein e.V. Augustaanlage 58 D-68165 Mannheim, Germany 39 Bulls www.mannheimer-kunstverein.de 50 Im Gespräch mit Darian Leader and Galerie Peter Zimmermann Leibnizstraße 20 D-68165 Mannheim, Germany 57 Flora www.galerie-zimmermann.de 69 Eyes

with design – Jaakko / Supergroup Studios 80 How can I move thee? photography – Peter White, Simon Steven & ??? ??? english translation – Amy Klement german translation – Catrin Huber 83 Displays print – Die Keure, Brugge, Belgium 92 Wie kann ich Sie? © Peter Zimmerman Gallery, Mark Fairnington and FXP Photography

ISBN 978-3-9808352-9-9 95 Storage

106 Curriculum Vitae 108 Acknowledgements

4 5 The Observing Eye Martin Stather

“The eyes of an animal when they consider a man are causes a pulling away, that maintains a distance blocks of stone, finishes off her sketches, signs them with particularly unique. Although not portraits in the attentive and wary. The same animal may well look between the subject of the painting and the viewer. his stamp, impresses on them his artistic hall-mark.” conventional sense, these images are, nonetheless, at other species in the same way. He does not reserve The living now seems lifeless, excised from the (Huysmans, 1884) distinctive in their portrayal and in the respect a special look for man. But by no other species except normal passage of time, dissected with the eye and Since nature is also no longer what it once was. that is perceptible in them and expressed in taking man will the animal’s look be recognized as familiar. put together anew. We are thus forced to see the Genetically modified foodstuffs, animals that are a step back. Fairnington leaves his subjects their Other animals are held by the look. Man becomes supposedly familiar with entirely new eyes. Like bred with more ribs, more muscle tissue in the dignity, their beauty, and their self-assurance; he aware of himself returning the look.” (Berger, 1980) visitors from another world, we are told of the right places from a marketing-related perspective, cautiously approaches them with the means of The animal motif, as also the flower still life, has Earth’s natural history and this story deals by no or with a resistance to particular illnesses – human his painting and presents them in an absolutely a long and quite checkered tradition in the history means with nature alone but rather, and perhaps beings have long intervened in the natural cycle of convincing manner. The tradition of animal of art. We think of the earliest animal paintings first and foremost, with the nature of human nature and changed the creation according to their and plant pieces is thus present, but we can also in the caves of Altamira and Lascaux, of Dürer’s beings, who are left out of the images but are, desires, and in the case of some animals and plants, apprehend that Mark Fairnington is also not hare or rhinoceros, of the Dutch painter Paulus nonetheless, omnipresent. according to their appetite. Mark Fairnington thus purely a painter of animals or plants. Potter in seventeen century with his wonderful Mark Fairnington paints what we, in the first paints what he sees and what he knows. What In this, his art is something particularly precious cows. Then there would be Maria Sibylla Merian instance, generally identify as nature. But he also results from this has nothing at all to do with a – the empathy and approach of the artist does with her pictures of plants and insects, the English paints specimens, for example from the natural romantic enthusiasm for nature but rather with not lead to a false identification with the subject. painter Edwin Landseer, who became famous in history museum, thus dead animals, and arranges a contemporary form of painting that pertains His images shimmer in the eye of the viewer, do the middle to the end of the nineteenth century them in tableaus in intimated glass cases. They directly to our lives. not allow themselves to be pinned down in an with his lifelike depictions of animals, and finally seem to be showpieces from the nineteenth Fairnington visibly does not occupy himself with unambiguous way, and thus precisely for this Courbet and Realism. A generation later, the century, a painted selection from natural history, documentary or photo-realistic painting, even reason, exert for us a special, nearly magical German painter Heinrich von Zügel came into exemplified by individual pieces. However, they when elements of these types of painting are fascination. The images of eyes, always in the the limelight with his depictions of domesticated are carefully arranged in a way different to by all means used. He paints in the way the he traditional form of the tondo, allow the viewer to animals. Finally, Expressionism metamorphosed how a museum would set them up. A veritable as a human being and painter sees things, with encounter the animal (and more rarely: human the animal into the human, closed a gap in the dramaturgy is created on the canvas, a chamber the small deviations that the eye performs, with being) eye-to-eye. Here, his artistic strategy distance between human and animal, not always piece that tells an entire story in one space. conscious, painterly gestures, therefore, as painting is perhaps most clearly manifest: we see the to the benefit of either. Fairnington’s subject is not, however, nature per occurs. The result is the artistic expression and observing eye, communicate with a counterpart – Mark Fairnington at first appears to follow se, but rather what we see as nature and how this essence of how we deal with nature, with the and ultimately find ourselves mirrored again in this in the tradition of these historical predecessors. seeing has changed over the centuries. creation, today. Far from being a moralist with eye. Magnificent painting that cannot be regarded His works show animals and plants that, at “Stubborn, muddle-headed, and narrow-minded an accusing finger, the painter states a transitory highly enough. first glance, might seem to come from a botany though she is, she has at last submitted, and her condition, a now that is subjected to constant or zoology textbook. The images often have master has succeeded in changing the soil components change, as is painting, but in contrast to this, one emblematic traits – plants and animals are depicted by means of chemical reactions, in utilizing slowly might assume that this change will hardly be a in isolation or in additions or juxtapositions on matured combinations, carefully elaborated crossings, positive one, even if approaches to it already exist. a neutral-monochrome background, and often in employing cuttings and graftings skilfully and In order to lift animals and plants, which stand as illuminated by an imaginary light, which suggests methodically, so that now he can make her put forth synonyms for the nature that surrounds us, out three-dimensionality where there is none. The the blossoms of different colours on the same branch, of anonymity, the artist adds his view of things, isolating of the motif facilitates a focused look invents new hues for her, and modifies at will the age- captured in the ductus of painting and/or through that is not diverted although it simultaneously old shapes of her plants. In short, he rough-hews her highlighting the animal or plant as something

6 7 Das beobachtende Auge Martin Stather

„Die Augen des Tieres sind, wenn sie einen Menschen Licht beleuchtet, das eine Räumlichkeit andeu- te Kreuzungen, er gebraucht raffinierte Stecklinge sitive sein wird, auch wenn Ansätze dazu bereits betrachten, aufmerksam und wachsam. Das gleiche tet, wo keine ist. Durch das Isolieren des Motivs und methodische Pfropfungen – da blühen Blumen existieren. Um Tier und Pflanze, die synonym für Tier wird wahrscheinlich andere Tiere auf die gleiche wird ein fokussierter Blick ermöglicht, der nicht in verschiedenen Farben auf demselben Zweig, er die uns umgebende Natur stehen, aus der Ano- Weise ansehen. Für den Menschen ist kein besonderer abgelenkt wird, gleichzeitig jedoch eine Entrü- erfindet für sie neue Farbtöne, verwandelt nach seinem nymität herauszuheben, gibt der Künstler seine Blick reserviert. Doch keine andere Gattung als die ckung bewirkt, die Abstand hält vom Gegenstand Belieben die jahrhundertealte Form ihrer Pflanzen, Sicht der Dinge dazu, eingefangen im Duktus der des Menschen wird den Blick des Tieres als vertraut der Malerei zum Betrachter. Seltsam leblos wirkt schleift Blöcke ab, vollendet Entwürfe, drückt ihnen Malerei und/oder durch eine Hervorhebung von empfinden. Andere Tiere nimmt der Blick gefangen. das Lebendige nun, aus dem normalen Zeitablauf seinen Stempel auf und versieht sie mit dem Siegel Tier oder Pflanze als etwas jeweils Einzigartigem. Der Mensch jedoch wird sich, indem er den Blick herausgeschnitten, mit dem Auge seziert und neu seiner Kunst.“ (Huysmans, 1884) Keine Porträts im herkömmlichen Sinn sind diese erwidert, seiner selbst bewusst.“ (Berger, 1980) zusammengesetzt. So werden wir gezwungen, Denn auch die Natur ist nicht mehr das, was sie Bilder doch unverwechselbar in ihrer Darstellung Das Tierstück hat, wie auch das Blumenstilleben, vermeintlich Bekanntes mit gänzlich neuen Augen einmal war. Gentechnisch veränderte Lebensmittel, und in dem in ihren spürbaren Respekt, der sich in der Kunstgeschichte eine lange und durchaus zu sehen. Wie Besucher von einer anderen Welt Tiere, die mit mehr Rippen, mehr Muskelfleisch an im Abstandnehmen ausdrückt. Fairnington lässt wechselhafte Tradition. Wir denken an die früheste bekommen wir irdische Naturgeschichte erzählt den vermarktungstechnisch richtigen Stellen oder seinen Subjekten ihre Würde, ihre Schönheit und Tiermalerei in den Höhlen von Altamira und und diese Erzählung handelt beileibe nicht von der mit Resistenzen gegen bestimmte Krankheiten ihr Selbstbewusstsein; behutsam nähert er sich Lascaux, an Dürers Hase oder Nashorn, an den Natur allein sondern, und vielleicht sogar zual- gezüchtet werden – der Mensch hat längst in den ihnen mit den Mitteln seiner Malerei und stellt sie Niederländer Paulus Potter im 17. Jahrhundert lererst, von der Natur des Menschen, der in den natürlichen Kreislauf der Natur eingegriffen und auf absolut überzeugende Art und Weise vor. Die mit seinen wunderbaren Kühen. Dann wäre da Bildern ausgespart und doch allgegenwärtig ist. verändert die Schöpfung nach seinen Wünschen Tradition des Tier- und Pflanzenstücks ist also Maria Sibylla Merian mit ihren Pflanzen- und Mark Fairnington malt zunächst einmal das, was und, im Fall mancher Tiere und Pflanzen, nach präsent, wir können jedoch auch festhalten, dass Insektenbilder, der englische Maler Edwin Land- wir gemeinhin als Natur bezeichnen. Er malt aber seinem Appetit. Mark Fairnington malt also was Mark Fairnington auch kein reiner Tier- oder seer, der Mitte bis Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts mit auch Präparate, etwa aus dem Naturhistorischen er sieht und was er weiß. Was dabei herauskommt, Pflanzenmaler ist. seinen naturgetreuen Tierdarstellungen bekannt Museum, tote Tiere also, und arrangiert diese zu hat mit romantischer Naturschwärmerei nicht das Darin ist seine Kunst etwas besonders Kostbares wurde, schließlich Courbet und der Realismus. tableaus in angedeuteten Glaskästen. Schaustücke Geringste zu tun, wohl aber mit einer aktuellen – die Einfühlung und Annäherung des Künstlers Eine Generation später tritt der deutsche Maler des 19. Jahrhunderts scheinen das zu sein, eine Malerei, die unser Leben direkt betrifft. führt nicht zu einer falschen Identifizierung mit Heinrich von Zügel mit seinen Darstellungen von gemalte Naturgeschichte in Auswahl, durch ein- Fairnington beschäftigt sich erkennbar nicht mit dem sujet. Seine Bilder changieren im Auge des Haus- und Hoftieren an die Öffentlichkeit. Der Ex- zelne Stücke exemplifiziert. Allerdings sind diese dokumentarischer oder fotorealistischer Malerei, Betrachters, lassen sich nicht auf eine eindeutige pressionismus schließlich verwandelt das Tier dem sorgfältig arrangiert, anders, als dies ein Museum auch wenn Elemente dieser Malerei durchaus Art und Weise festlegen und üben gerade deshalb Menschen an, schließt eine Lücke in der Distanz einrichten würde. Eine regelrechte Dramaturgie Verwendung finden. Er malt so, wie er die Dinge eine besondere, beinahe magische Faszination auf zwischen Mensch und Tier, nicht immer zum entsteht dort auf der Leinwand, ein Kammerstück, als Mensch und Maler sieht, mit den kleinen Ab- uns aus. Die Augenbilder, immer in der tradierten Vorteil von beiden. das eine ganze Geschichte in einem Raum erzählt. weichungen, die das Auge macht, mit bewusst ma- Form des tondo, lassen den Betrachter Aug´ in Mark Fairnington scheint zunächst in der Reihe Fairningtons Thema ist aber nicht Natur per se, lerischer Geste, mithin so, wie Malerei geschieht. Aug´ mit Tier (und seltener: Mensch) treten. Hier dieser historischen Vorbilder zu stehen. Sei- schon eher, was wir als Natur sehen und wie sich Das Resultat ist künstlerischer Ausdruck und tritt seine künstlerische Strategie vielleicht am ne Arbeiten zeigen Tiere und Pflanzen, die auf dieses Sehen über die Jahrhunderte verändert hat. Essenz dessen, wie wir heute mit Natur, mit der deutlichsten zu Tage: Wir sehen das beobachtende den ersten Blick vielleicht einem Lehrbuch der „So verrannt, so verwirrt, so beschränkt die Natur Schöpfung umgehen. Weit davon entfernt, Moralist Auge, treten in Kommunikation mit einem Gegen- Botanik oder Zoologie entstammen könnten. Die auch sein mag – schließlich hat sie sich doch unterwor- mit erhobenem Zeigefinger zu sein, konstatiert der über – und finden letztlich uns selbst als Reflex in Bilder tragen oft emblematische Züge – Pflanzen fen, und ihr Gebieter hat es erreicht, sie zu verwan- Maler einen transitorischen Zustand, ein Jetzt, das diesem Auge wieder. Eine großartige Malerei, die und Tiere werden isoliert oder in Addition oder deln: durch chemische Einwirkungen verändert er ständiger Veränderung unterworfen ist wie auch man nicht hoch genug schätzen kann. Gegenüberstellungen auf neutral-monochromem die Substanzen der Erde, langsam herangereifte die Malerei, aber im Gegensatz zu dieser darf man Hintergrund dargestellt, oft von einem imaginären Kombinationen wendet er an, sorgfältig vorbereite- vermuten, dass diese Veränderung kaum eine po-

8 9 II.

I. III. I V. V. VI.

Specimens I. Specimen (1) – II. Specimen (2) – III. Specimen (3) I V. Specimen (4) – V. Specimen (5) – VI. Specimen (9) VII. VII. Specimen (6) – VIII. Specimen (7) – IX. Specimen (8) VIII. X. X. Specimen (10) – XI. Specimen (11) – XII. Specimen 12 (Fall) XIII. Specimen 13 (Fall) – XIV. Shield Mantid IX. X V. Idolomantis diabolica

XII.

XIII. X V.

XI.

X I V.

10 11 Specimen (1) Specimen (5) oil on canvas oil on canvas 202 × 66 cm, 1999 228 × 163 cm, 2000

12 13 Specimen (6) Specimen (7) oil on canvas oil on canvas 203 × 214 cm, 2000 214 × 189 cm, 2000

14 15 Specimen (9) oil on canvas 103 × 122 cm, 2000

16 17 Specimen 12 (Fall) Specimen 13 (Fall) oil on panel oil on panel 80 × 42 cm, 2010 80 × 50 cm, 2010

18 19 Idolomantis diabolica oil on canvas 190 × 204 cm, 2009

20 21 22 23 II. III. I V.

I.

Paradise Birds I. Paradise Bird – II. Paradise Red Revisited – III. Paradise Red I V. Falcinellus striatus – V. Paradisea Apoda – VI. Epimachus magnus VII. Paradisaea raggiana – VIII. Paradisea augusti-victoria IX. Wilson’s Bird of Paradise – X. Paradisea Rubra XI. Magnificent Bird of Paradise – XII. Six-Plumed Paradise bird XIII. Albert's Golden Paradise Bird – XIV. Lawes Golden Paradise Bird X V. Sickle Billed Bird of Paradise – XVI. Superb Bird of Paradise XVII. Wallace’s Standard Wing – XVIII. Twelve‑Wired Bird of Paradise XIX. Paradise Deceased V. VI. VII. VIII.

XI. XII. XIII. X I V.

XIX.

X V. XVI. XVII. XVIII.

IX.

X.

24 25 Paradise Bird oil on canvas 220 × 110 cm, 2005

Paradisea Rubra oil on canvas 182 × 92 cm, 2005

26 27 Paradisaea raggiana oil on canvas 231 × 104 cm, 2005

Paradisea augusti-victoria oil on canvas 231 × 104 cm, 2005

Falcinellus striatus oil on canvas 200 × 66 cm, 2005

Paradise Deceased oil on panel 30 × 20 cm, 2009

28 29 Paradise Red Revisited oil on canvas 199 × 118 cm, 2005

Paradise Red oil on canvas 199 × 118 cm, 2005

30 31 An Interview with Darian Leader

Why painting? I was also working with collage, appropriating created that display, or put that collection together The whole notion of the specimen is something that images from different sources and remaking them than it does about the thing itself. you explore continually in your work. You seem to Painting is something I’ve always done, it’s the in terms of stories. I really began painting again question the classical idea that the specimen has to be way I’ve made work since I first started making seriously when I was living on a council estate On a superficial level the paintings seem to be about a paradigmatic representation of the species, as you work so it’s never really been a question to me in South-East London, and became fascinated particular insects and birds and plants, but very show the viewer specimens that are broken, or rotten, about why one should do it and I think I’ve tried by the stories that people told, urban myths about very quickly the viewer realises that they are not or holed. to understand it in terms of a sort of storytelling. the place, and I began to make a series of paintings simply about that but they are about the way in which The images that I use are images that I’ve found about that. humans classify the supposedly natural world. Well they become different kinds of specimens; out in the world, which I record in different ways, in a sense they become specimens of specimens. and the making of a painting is like a retelling What kind of narratives interested you at that time? Absolutely. And I suppose that the work’s also The damage that’s occurred through the process of that image, and it’s a way of connecting my about how an apparently truthful representation of them being collected and stored and, you know, understanding of that image to the history of Things that were unexpected. Things that you can be a construct of a whole number of different the strange things that happen in collections. painting, which is a history that I know and would only know about if you lived somewhere, fictions, and I think what I got interested in in I’ve studied and which inevitably informs quite and in a way that idea has come right the way terms of the history of science was how observed Sally O’Reilly wrote in her beautiful text about deeply the way that I look at the things that through to the work that I’ve done recently. things generate theories, and there’s a point where your work that it’s about a 'meta-collection'; not just I’m researching. Apart from that I enjoy doing The detail of looking at a specific thing generates you jump off into kind of fantasy and speculation, a representation, but a representation of how things it. It’s a great pleasure to actually make the information that you wouldn’t have knowledge and those sort of stories tend to get written out of are represented. paintings and it’s a never-ending problem about of otherwise and I think that’s what interested me the history of science. But if you look back at them what painting will bring to a particular subject, about those kinds of stories. The first show that they’re really quite powerful descriptions of the Yes. And another thing that governs the work or how a certain subject might manifest itself as I did was called ‘Things that fall from tower blocks’ relationships between people and the natural world. is the idea of a kind of amateur engagement, a painting. And in a sense I only really understand and I had a painting with a list of things around somebody coming from outside a discipline. what the process of making a painting has done it so I think in some ways that idea of observing An obvious example might be the behaviour and even Basically I picked the insects that I kind of liked once the finished thing’s in front of me; it’s not something and seeing things that you wouldn’t see the colouring of dinosaurs. We all assume we know the look of, resurrecting the nineteenth century something that I know before I start making unless you’re actually just sitting there looking what dinosaurs looked like and did but actually we idea of the person who just decides they want to do it. And it’s the continual interrogation of that at it has been important to the work right the know very very little about their habits and their something and goes out and does it. With the bull problem which interests me I suppose… you way through. pigmentation. What we 'know' is a reflection of our paintings I just looked the images up online, where know ultimately… I don’t stop painting because own interests. the farms advertise the services of their stock bulls it’s always interesting to me. You say that one of the things that interested you in the and chose to photograph the ones that I liked the painting process was recording, and a lot of your work Yes. And there are many well-known examples look of. Where you working in other media before? seems to be about not just this but actually recording of specimens that come back from somewhere, recordings, exploring how people group and classify. and the person studying them uses a mixture of So your own desire and curiosity rather than the Well I studied sculpture at Saint Martins but I was their imagination of what the thing was, and then attempt to impose a schema or a grid onto the on what was known as the A Course sculpture Yes, I mean looking at the natural history when you come on to scientific research put on specimens? which was a conceptual art course that people collections, what I really liked was the way in display for the public, when you go into dioramas like Gilbert and George and Richard Long came which the image of the specimen seen in collections and things like that, you get into an even more Absolutely. And in a way, underpinning the whole out of, and when I first left college I was actually through to displays… When you look at it now it kind of convoluted territory of different kinds of idea is the image of the cabinet of curiosities, the making comic books, underground comic books. seems to say much more about the culture that fictions coming together… Wunderkammer, the sort of pre-Enlightenment

32 33 idea of a collection where objects are collected There’s quite a funny story behind that. When Well, with the Birds of Paradise paintings, a friend to them as alive things that I became fascinated by. because of their sense of fascination or wonder, I did my first specimen for the Natural History of mine, the painter Andrew Grassie looked at And I think that’s again it’s something that’s run and that again is something that runs through Museum in London, you had to take the one brushstroke in a painting and said “it looks through all of the work: with the flower works it’s the whole work. specimen from the collection to the photography just like a brushstroke out of a van Dyck” and it very like the idea of the vanitas painting in which department and I took this idolomantis and then seemed to sum up an idea of a kind of portraiture: however alive it is, the sense of death is always But there also seems to be a tension in your work their cameraman got a bit of black velvet out and a brushstroke that is quietly confident of itself, there lurking somewhere. between the paintings that treat isolated specimens spread it on the table and I said “I’ve never done a bit overconfident, a bit brash you know, kind of where the borders or edges of the specimens seem clear a black background before” and he said “Well flashy and I just liked all the references that one And there’s a convergence of death and sexuality isn’t and the other paintings where you have a relation that’s just the way we do insects” and I like the connection introduced. So I think the more I've there, in those paintings? established between specimens. Birds move close to idea that the aesthetic decision is just made and made the work the longer I've gone on the more plants and there is a sense of a trajectory or some kind then it becomes the way things are seen. those kind of references have become important in Yes, and in the insect works, I was drawn to the of vector, yet there always seems to be something that terms of the way I think about it. idea of the Mantids because of the stories about the blocks the meeting or the union of the two different And how about the rather luminous pinks and yellows, praying mantis that so fascinated the Surrealists. things. We see the bird or the moth about to get to colours which seem to disrupt the idea of a scientific One of the other contrasts I found very powerful in the the plant but with this empty space in between. background to the image? work is that between death and life. The specimen in But in the botanical paintings as well, it’s difficult not the mode of representation that you are exploring is to see evoked the reproductive system… Those paintings consciously reference botanical I’m always interested in this point where quite a dead one, it’s a kind of mortification. illustration and one artist in particular, detailed painting of specimens becomes a source It’s not something I think about hugely when I'm Maria Sibylla Merian, whose work combined material for decoration and fabric design and Yes. making the work but I think there’s this kind of life very intense observation with quite decorative things like that and you see that crossover going force in them that’s self-perpetuating, regardless of structures. But also the idea that a whole life on all the time and in some ways that’s what the And at the same time in nearly all of the paintings your input or looking at it, a world that will go on cycle of one insect can be put into one painting. work refers to. which contain more than one element, where you have without your involvement. I think that’s something So in some ways those paintings take this the flower and bird and so on, you have both the sense that I like from those paintings, the barrier idea of different points in time coming together The colour backgrounds seem to index the space of mortification but also a sense of life, an aspiration between the image and the person looking at it; in the same image, which also happens in the big of painting rather than the space of scientific towards or a movement. like when you look at animals in the wild. When single insect specimen paintings in that they’re classificatory systems. I saw soldier ants in Belize in the rainforest, they made up of thirty or forty photographs shot at The first time I kind of recognised that in the work just marched on and it was fairly obvious that my different points in time and then put together to Yes. And how the space of painting comes into was with the insect specimens. When you open the being there had absolutely no relevance. make a single image. The paintings with the light the work has always been really important to me. drawers they are pinned down facing the bottom grounds definitely reference the idea of botanical I suppose what’s interested me are those moments of the drawer. You just turn them around and they There’s still a sense of purpose or direction. What ought painting, whereas the flower paintings on the where something in the history of painting comes immediately become alive. to be a neutral, blank background is in fact a vector darker grounds are much more about seventeenth into the way you’re thinking. And it’s amazing how space, governed by desires. The various insects and birds century still life painting. it’s part of the body of the work that is very difficult In what sense? are moving towards this female sexual apparatus. The to record and very difficult to remember afterwards background is less a neutral space than a force field. Your use of background seems to move from surgical but it’s hugely important and… Well they’re animated and then when you blow white to rich black which evokes nineteenth century them up to the size of human beings they become Yes, I like that description of the work. The velvet. Can you say more about that? resurrected in a way, and it was people’s response other thing about the flower paintings is they’re

34 35 impossible, they’re not actual, they’re the result And often there’s a kind of image of me in there, So again the idea of the space of a collection as With the tower block presumably the objects themselves of somebody thinking. I suppose they reflect the taking the photograph. reflecting the human necessities to classify, possess had an arbitrariness or a contingency but your artistic idea of genetic engineering, the sense that someone and contain. act rendered them into a collection. Whereas then you thinks that would look good with let’s just put it Why do you make the eye paintings round when the moved to this kind of meta level where it’s collections together and see what happens. eye isn’t? Yes. The more recent eye paintings are less actual of collections… you’re exploring in a way the act that animals than a mixture of different creatures, so made you classify or combine in the first place… But isn’t it also a very precise evocation of fantasy The roundness came from thinking about them they become more like imagined things and the life, the idea that what governs the relations between being shown as paintings, and I like the idea that skin and fur stretch far beyond what it ever would I suppose the other thing about that is where do people is fantasy, which always conjures up some kind these are objects you might have found in some if it was wrapped around a skull. you end, when do you stop, because in a sense of impossible link between things that could never be curious collection somewhere that weren’t there’s a sort of terrifying idea that once you’ve in the same place at the same time. necessarily made to be hung on the wall but And how do you see the relation between the eye started doing this you kind of have to keep going actually just made to be brought out and looked paintings and the collection works? because that’s the road you’re on. Yes, I think those paintings are where that idea is at so they didn’t hang on the architecture in any most fully explored but it probably underpins a lot way. They could just float. I think some of the paintings of collections, in of the work actually. particular the ones of the storage depot at the They’re also evocative of classical shields or amulets Natural History Museum seem to be more about Perhaps this brings us to the eye paintings. What were which often had an eye motif, or the ocellus in the a particular collection, a particular place, whereas you interested in here? animal and insect world. the eye paintings don't seem to be like that: they detach themselves from an institution in as much What I liked about the eyes was the layering For me, the other thing about the shape of the as they can, they seem to reach out beyond those of fictions: they’re taxidermy specimens, so the eye paintings and their format is something to walls. fur and the skin are real but the eye isn't. The do with the idea of possession. The first eye focus of the painting is in fact a glass eye, which painting I ever did was actually a self-portrait It’s interesting to go back to the works that you did reflects the interior of the building, the room in eye that was mounted inside a woman’s compact many years ago, like ‘Objects fallen from tower blocks’. which the specimen is being displayed, so you and that was made in response to a piece in the Was that in itself a sort of minimal collection? get the institution reflected in the creature. The Harris Museum collection of a woman’s eye question of the veracity of images is also important painted on a brooch. It was made for a nineteenth It makes us wonder what one thing is next to here, how believable they are. When people have century English aristocrat who fell in love with another thing, and I suppose there’s a whole described the work as realism, I’d say it’s more a woman from the Belgian royal family. He was series of works that I did before any of the about questioning realism in painting. told there was no way it was going to happen so natural history paintings that looked at the idea he had her eye painted on a brooch and there’s of collections in different ways. I did a series You focus on the reflective property of the eye. The this idea that somehow the image is a way of that looked at early Renaissance images of the eye isn’t something that we see into but that reflects possessing something, and the shape strengthens Madonna and Child and portraits of body builders the outside. It reminds us that the eye is something that idea that this is a collected thing, rather cropped out of magazines, so I think that the idea that’s being looked at by the containing space rather than an image to be seen. of the painting series being a kind of collection is than the other way round. something that goes back much further.

36 37 I. II.

Bulls I. Turbo Tommy – II. Maerdy Tally III. Gretnahouse Umpire – I V. Soldier V. Doncombe Aga Khan – VI. Wroxall Tracer

III. I V.

V. VI.

38 39 Gretnahouse Umpire Wroxall Tracer oil and palladium on panel oil on canvas 235 × 366 cm, 2010 235 × 330 cm, 2009

40 41 Turbo Tommy oil on canvas 235 ×330 cm, 2009

42 43 44 Doncombe Aga Khan Soldier oil on canvas oil on canvas 235 × 342 cm, 2011 235 × 330 cm, 2010

45 46 47 Maerdy Tally oil on canvas 235 × 367 cm, 2009

48 49 German interview missing mit Darian Leader

Why painting? I was also working with collage, appropriating created that display, or put that collection together images from different sources and remaking them than it does about the thing itself. The whole notion of the specimen is something that Painting is something I’ve always done, it’s the in terms of stories. I really began painting again you explore continually in your work. You seem to way I’ve made work since I first started making seriously when I was living on a council estate On a superficial level the paintings seem to be about question the classical idea that the specimen has to be work so it’s never really been a question to me in South-East London, and became fascinated particular insects and birds and plants, but very a paradigmatic representation of the species, as you about why one should do it and I think I’ve tried by the stories that people told, urban myths about very quickly the viewer realises that they are not show the viewer specimens that are broken, or rotten, to understand it in terms of a sort of storytelling. the place, and I began to make a series of paintings simply about that but they are about the way in which or holed. The images that I use are images that I’ve found about that. humans classify the supposedly natural world. out in the world, which I record in different ways, Well they become different kinds of specimens; and the making of a painting is like a retelling What kind of narratives interested you at that time? Absolutely. And I suppose that the work’s also in a sense they become specimens of specimens. of that image, and it’s a way of connecting my about how an apparently truthful representation The damage that’s occurred through the process understanding of that image to the history of Things that were unexpected. Things that you can be a construct of a whole number of different of them being collected and stored and, you know, painting, which is a history that I know and would only know about if you lived somewhere, fictions, and I think what I got interested in in the strange things that happen in collections. I’ve studied and which inevitably informs quite and in a way that idea has come right the way terms of the history of science was how observed deeply the way that I look at the things that through to the work that I’ve done recently. things generate theories, and there’s a point where Sally O’Reilly wrote in her beautiful text about I’m researching. Apart from that I enjoy doing The detail of looking at a specific thing generates you jump off into kind of fantasy and speculation, your work that it’s about a 'meta-collection'; not just it. It’s a great pleasure to actually make the information that you wouldn’t have knowledge and those sort of stories tend to get written out of a representation, but a representation of how things paintings and it’s a never-ending problem about of otherwise and I think that’s what interested me the history of science. But if you look back at them are represented. what painting will bring to a particular subject, about those kinds of stories. The first show that they’re really quite powerful descriptions of the or how a certain subject might manifest itself as I did was called ‘Things that fall from tower blocks’ relationships between people and the natural world. Yes. And another thing that governs the work a painting. And in a sense I only really understand and I had a painting with a list of things around is the idea of a kind of amateur engagement, what the process of making a painting has done it so I think in some ways that idea of observing An obvious example might be the behaviour and even somebody coming from outside a discipline. once the finished thing’s in front of me; it’s not something and seeing things that you wouldn’t see the colouring of dinosaurs. We all assume we know Basically I picked the insects that I kind of liked something that I know before I start making unless you’re actually just sitting there looking what dinosaurs looked like and did but actually we the look of, resurrecting the nineteenth century it. And it’s the continual interrogation of that at it has been important to the work right the know very very little about their habits and their idea of the person who just decides they want to problem which interests me I suppose… you way through. pigmentation. What we 'know' is a reflection of our do something and goes out and does it. With the know ultimately… I don’t stop painting because own interests. bull paintings I just looked the images up online, it’s always interesting to me. You say that one of the things that interested you in the where the farms advertise the services of their painting process was recording, and a lot of your work Yes. And there are many well-known examples stock bulls and chose to photograph the ones that Where you working in other media before? seems to be about not just this but actually recording of specimens that come back from somewhere, I liked the look of. recordings, exploring how people group and classify. and the person studying them uses a mixture of Well I studied sculpture at Saint Martins but I was their imagination of what the thing was, and then So your own desire and curiosity rather than the on what was known as the A Course sculpture Yes, I mean looking at the Natural History when you come on to scientific research put on attempt to impose a schema or a grid onto the which was a conceptual art course that people collections, what I really liked was the way in display for the public, when you go into dioramas specimens? like Gilbert and George and Richard Long came which the image of the specimen seen in collections and things like that, you get into an even more out of, and when I first left college I was actually through to displays… When you look at it now it kind of convoluted territory of different kinds of Absolutely. And in a way, underpinning the whole making comic books, underground comic books. seems to say much more about the culture that fictions coming together… idea is the image of the cabinet of curiosities, the

50 51 Wunderkammer, the sort of pre-Enlightenment velvet. Well they’re animated and then when you blow idea of a collection where objects are collected Can you say more about that? them up to the size of human beings they become because of their sense of fascination or wonder, There’s quite a funny story behind that. When resurrected in a way, and it was people’s response and that again is something that runs through I did my first specimen for the Natural History Well, with the Birds of Paradise paintings, a friend to them as alive things that I became fascinated by. the whole work. Museum in London, you had to take the of mine, the painter Andrew Grassie looked at And I think that’s again it’s something that’s run specimen from the collection to the photography one brushstroke in a painting and said “it looks through all of the work: with the flower works it’s But there also seems to be a tension in your work department and I took this idolomantis and then just like a brushstroke out of a van Dyck” and it very like the idea of the vanitas painting in which between the paintings that treat isolated specimens their cameraman got a bit of black velvet out and seemed to sum up an idea of a kind of portraiture: however alive it is, the sense of death is always where the borders or edges of the specimens seem clear spread it on the table and I said “I’ve never done a brushstroke that is quietly confident of itself, there lurking somewhere. and the other paintings where you have a relation a black background before” and he said “Well a bit overconfident, a bit brash you know, kind of established between specimens. Birds move close to that’s just the way we do insects” and I just like flashy and I just liked all the references that one And there’s a convergence of death and sexuality isn’t plants and there is a sense of a trajectory or some kind the idea that the aesthetic decision is just made connection introduced. So I think the more I've there, in those paintings? of vector, yet there always seems to be something that and then it becomes the way things are seen. made the work the longer I've gone on the more blocks the meeting or the union of the two different those kind of references have become important in Yes, and in the insect works, I was drawn to the things. We see the bird or the moth about to get to And how about the rather luminous pinks and yellows, terms of the way I think about it. idea of the Mantids because of the stories about the the plant but with this empty space in between. colours which seem to disrupt the idea of a scientific praying mantis that so fascinated the Surrealists. background to the image? One of the other contrasts I found very powerful in the Those paintings consciously reference botanical work is that between death and life. The specimen in But in the botanical paintings as well, it’s difficult not illustration and one artist in particular, I’m always interested in this point where quite the mode of representation that you are exploring is to see evoked the reproductive system… Maria Sibylla Merian, whose work combined detailed painting of specimens becomes a source a dead one, it’s a kind of mortification. very intense observation with quite decorative material for decoration and fabric design and It’s not something I think about hugely when I'm structures. But also the idea that a whole life things like that and you see that crossover going Yes. making the work but I think there’s this kind of life cycle of one insect can be put into one painting. on all the time and in some ways that’s what the force in them that’s self-perpetuating, regardless of So in some ways those paintings take this work refers to. And at the same time in nearly all of the paintings your input or looking at it, a world that will go on idea of different points in time coming together which contain more than one element, where you have without your involvement. I think that’s something in the same image, which also happens in the big The colour backgrounds seem to index the space the flower and bird and so on, you have both the sense that I like from those paintings, the barrier single insect specimen paintings in that they’re of painting rather than the space of scientific of mortification but also a sense of life, an aspiration between the image and the person looking at it; made up of thirty or forty photographs shot at classificatory systems. towards or a movement. like when you look at animals in the wild. When different points in time and then put together to I saw soldier ants in Belize in the rainforest, they make a single image. The paintings with the light Yes. And how the space of painting comes into The first time I kind of recognised that in the work just marched on and it was fairly obvious that my grounds definitely reference the idea of botanical the work has always been really important to me. was with the insect specimens. When you open the being there had absolutely no relevance. painting, whereas the flower paintings on the I suppose what’s interested me are those moments drawers they are pinned down facing the bottom darker grounds are much more about seventeenth where something in the history of painting comes of the drawer. You just turn them around and they There’s still a sense of purpose or direction. What ought century still life painting. into the way you’re thinking. And it’s amazing how immediately become alive. to be a neutral, blank background is in fact a vector it’s part of the body of the work that is very difficult space, governed by desires. The various insects and birds Your use of background seems to move from surgical to record and very difficult to remember afterwards In what sense? are moving towards this female sexual apparatus. The white to rich black which evokes nineteenth century but it’s hugely important and… background is less a neutral space than a force field.

52 53 the outside. It reminds us that the eye is something that idea that this is a collected thing, rather series being a kind of collection is something that Yes, I like that description of the work. The that’s being looked at by the containing space rather than an image to be seen. goes back much further. other thing about the flower paintings is they’re than the other way round. impossible, they’re not actual, they’re the result So again the idea of the space of a collection as With the tower block presumably the objects themselves of somebody thinking. I suppose they reflect the And often there’s a kind of image of me in there, reflecting the human necessities to classify, possess had an arbitrariness or a contingency but your artistic idea of genetic engineering, the sense that someone taking the photograph. and contain. act rendered them into a collection. Whereas then you thinks that would look good with let’s just put it moved to this kind of meta level where it’s collections together and see what happens. Why do you make the eye paintings round when the Yes. The more recent eye paintings are less actual of collections… you’re exploring in a way the act that eye isn’t? animals than a mixture of different creatures, so made you classify or combine in the first place… But isn’t it also a very precise evocation of fantasy they become more like imagined things and the life, the idea that what governs the relations between The roundness came from thinking about them skin and fur stretch far beyond what it ever would I suppose the other thing about that is where do people is fantasy, which always conjures up some kind being shown as paintings, and I like the idea that if it was wrapped around a skull. you end, when do you stop, because in a sense of impossible link between things that could never be these are objects you might have found in some there’s a sort of terrifying idea that once you’ve in the same place at the same time. curious collection somewhere that weren’t And how do you see the relation between the eye started doing this you kind of have to keep going necessarily made to be hung on the wall but paintings and the collection works? because that’s the road you’re on. Yes, I think those paintings are where that idea is actually just made to be brought out and looked most fully explored but it probably underpins a lot at so they didn’t hang on the architecture in any I think some of the paintings of collections, in of the work actually. way. They could just float. particular the ones of the storage depot at the Natural History Museum seem to be more about Perhaps this brings us to the eye paintings. What were They’re also evocative of classical shields or amulets a particular collection, a particular place, whereas you interested in here? which often had an eye motif, or the ocellus in the the eye paintings don't seem to be like that: they animal and insect world. detach themselves from an institution in as much What I liked about the eyes was the layering as they can, they seem to reach out beyond those of fictions: they’re taxidermy specimens, so the For me, the other thing about the shape of the walls. fur and the skin are real but the eye isn't. The eye paintings and their format is something to focus of the painting is in fact a glass eye, which do with the idea of possession. The first eye It’s interesting to go back to the works that you did reflects the interior of the building, the room in painting I ever did was actually a self-portrait many years ago, like ‘Objects fallen from tower blocks’. which the specimen is being displayed, so you eye that was mounted inside a woman’s compact Was that in itself a sort of minimal collection? get the institution reflected in the creature. The and that was made in response to a piece in the question of the veracity of images is also important Harris Museum collection of a woman’s eye It makes us wonder what one thing is next to here, how believable they are. When people have painted on a brooch. It was made for a nineteenth another thing, and I suppose there’s a whole series described the work as realism, I’d say it’s more century English aristocrat who fell in love with of works that I did before any of the Natural about questioning realism in painting. a woman from the Belgian royal family. He was History that looked at the idea of collections in told there was no way it was going to happen so different ways. I did a series that looked at early You focus on the reflective property of the eye. The he had her eye painted on a brooch and there’s Renaissance images of the Madonna and Child eye isn’t something that we see into but that reflects this idea that somehow the image is a way of and portraits of body builders cropped out of possessing something, and the shape strengthens magazines, so I think that the idea of the painting

54 55 III.

I. II. VI.

I V. V.

VII. VIII. IX. XI. Flora X. I. Water Lily – II. The Deaths Head Hawkmoth – III. The Love Bird I V. The Golden Leaves – V. The Invisible Tree – VI. Cuculidae Slipper Orchid VII. The Parrot Plant – VIII. Coucal Cattleya – IX. Turaco Green Lady X. The Tiger Swallowtail Plant – XI. Morpho Menelaus Plant

XII. XII. Dead Leaf Plant – XIII. A Line of Points – XIV. Flirt (six butterflies) X V. The Insect’s Bite – XVI. Glossy Starling Plant – XVII. Cuckoo Moth XVIII. Plant Plant – XIX. Ms Butterfly –XX. The Four Hummingbirds XXI. The Insect Eating Plant – XXII. Roadrunner Zygopetalum XVIII. XXIII. Flirt (tortoiseshell) – XXIV. Dead Leaves X V.

XIII. X I V. XVI. XVII.

X X I V.

XXIII.

XIX.

XXII. XX. XXI.

56 57 Cuculidae Slipper Orchid oil on panel 66 × 77 cm, 2011

58 59 Plant Plant oil on panel 70 × 60 cm, 2011

Ms Butterfly oil on panel 70 × 70 cm, 2011

60 61 Cuckoo Moth oil on panel 80 × 60 cm, 2011

Roadrunner Zygopetalum oil on panel 80 × 48 cm, 2011

62 63 Turaco Green Lady oil and gold leaf on panel 80 × 56 cm, 2011

Coucal Cattleya oil on panel 70 × 65 cm, 2011

64 65 66 67 I. III. I V. II.

VI. VII. VIII. IX. V.

X I V. Eyes I. Lion – II. Zebra – III. Tyger Tyger – I V. The Goat V. Zebra Zebra – VI. Lion Lion – VII. Red Eye – VIII. Gorilla XII. IX. Bison – X. Gnu – XI. Orangutan – XII. Sable Eye XIII. Polar Bear Eye – XIV. Leopard – X V. Zebra Eye – XVI. Seal XVII. Itself – XVIII. The Beast – XIX. Prodigy X. XI. XIII. X V.

XVI.

XVII. XIX. XVIII.

68 69 Tyger Tyger Lion Zebra oil on wood oil on wood oil on wood 35 cm diameter, 2006 35 cm diameter, 2006 40 cm diameter, 2003

70 71 Red Eye Bison oil on wood oil on wood 35 cm diameter, 2006 35 cm diameter, 2006

72 73 Gnu Sable Eye Itself oil on canvas on wood oil on canvas on wood oil on panel 35.5 cm diameter, 2008 19 cm diameter, 2008 50 cm diameter, 2011

74 75 Prodigy The Goat oil on panel oil on canvas on wood 50 cm diameter, 2008 35 cm diameter, 2004

76 77 The Beast oil on panel 60 cm diameter, 2011

78 79 How can I move thee? For Specimens 2 and 4 Mary Madden

I first encountered Mark Fairnington’s Specimens taxonomical gaze look back at us as we look at examples. The fabric of the museum is breaking Fairnington’s animal and specimen painting series at the Dead or Alive show in Leeds after them. These are works which subtly interrogate through as these works subtly register the active research into, “how humans (re)connect with, emerging from a long engagement with Mary ways in which classification and display systems affectivity of the past within the present. and disconnect from, their ‘animate [and de- Shelley’s Frankenstein (Madden, 2012). I was in the sciences produce cultural meaning. The prevalence of theory on the gaze and animated] products’” (Wilkie 2005). Given therefore susceptible to the paintings’, “almost Fairnington’s carefully depicted encounter with the ‘other’ (Jay 1994, Said 1978, Mulvey 1989) our ambivalent attitudes toward animals as gothic” fascination (Harewood House, 2002). research subject/object in/dignity is resonant with attests to the fact that we never tire of looking companions or foodstuff and a tendency to Pinned in pigment to each canvas was a portrait themes about the unstable boundaries between life and relish finding ‘them’ cute and/or threatening. attribute subjectivity to any humanoid form, of an isolated and oversized Mantis. Each insect and death, fact and fiction, the past in the present, Fairnington vivifies the gazes of the specimens specimen gazes inevitably take on new lives portrait is based on observations of original the animal and the human. portrayed without crude anthropomorphism. His through the viewer’s appropriation. As Victor specimens once extracted from their ecological Although some insist that science is a paintings are also a kindly reminder that there is Frankenstein and Charles Darwin both habitats to exemplify places in a taxonomical fundamentally inventive process (Haraway 1992, no such thing as innocent knowledge. The quest discovered, once released into the world, products system. Fragile, desiccated remains had been Tiles 1984), a claim to be scientific is a claim to for knowledge, even on the basis of good intentions, of research processes are not easily controlled. combined and then individualised by their status objectivity and a guarantor of the production is in itself absolutely no guarantor against Victor Frankenstein regarded his creature, as scientific samples and as subjects for painting; of factual knowledge. Inevitably, this is a claim horror. Spectacular natural history television the product of his research, as horrifying and then individualised again by their employment about power that utilises a set of assumptions documentaries have allowed us to observe animal monstrous at the moment he realised it would in the narratives of the viewer. In my mind, man about the subject, science, knowledge, the subjects in the most intimate detail and in great acquire its own subjectivity. While he pieced his sized Mantidae morphed with memories of three research process, theory and expertise. safety. The gazes in these paintings, particularly anatomical mechanism together, he regarded the dimensional écorchés, the ‘life’ subjects once used Fairnington’s painting highlights the fact that all from the predators, provide food for thought about pieces of his project culled from the grave and the by artists and medical students unable to draw scientific and artistic practice involves embodied the dangers inherent in collecting specimens and slaughterhouse as objects of beauty. The horror directly from dissected corpses. Specimen 2 has observation, interpretation and (commodified) in becoming one of the collected. came when epistemology shifted to ontology and one perfectly poignant intact wisp of antenna. testimony. The suprarealist effect achieved in his Fairnington’s Bull paintings see a shift in his it was clear that the creature would have its own A damaged limb rests on the stake through its oil painting draws attention to the painstaking focus from inanimate object/subjects to, “the embodied subjectivity. Its dull yellow eye opened middle; two more are bent in prayer. Its coy, construction of the canvases while creating sentient and ambiguous commodities” (Wilkie and the creature gained the power to look back waxy defensiveness called to mind André-Pierre an illusion of transparent access to the truth 2005) humans make of the pedigree livestock at its creator: “Unable to endure the aspect of the Pinson’s 18th century Anatomy of a Seated Woman. of the subject. His works are based on acute which HRH the Prince of Wales regards as, “just being I had created,” Frankenstein abandoned his In Specimen 4’s knock-kneed splay I read the observation enhanced by photomicrography and as much a part of Britain's heritage as is her creation (Shelley 1963). Fairnington is a braver ambivalence I perceived in images of flayed fibre optic illumination. They are observations castles, her art collections or her historic churches” father and one who is clearly engaged with the cadavers holding up their skins in anatomy books. of observations and representations of (RBST, 1996). However, these paintings are part ethics and responsibilities of generative processes. Fairnington’s later circular eye paintings, representations. of a longer and wider heritage which includes the shortlisted for installation on the ceiling of the The insect subjects that went into the making four black bulls in the caves at Lascaux, France. Natural History Museum in London as part of of Specimens died a long time ago. Look closely at Just as there is no such thing as Itself (p.75), and the 2008 Darwin’s Canopy project, are works Fairnington’s depictions of fake eyes fringed with Specimens formed part of the Fabulous Beasts that again engage with the social and symbolic poignant lashes and you will see more reflections show at the Natural History Museum in London relations of science and sentiment. Each of these of the dead. These paintings are a view from the (2004), so a superfluity of genetically and painterly paintings is a close up of the eye of an animal natural history museum’s storage depot at the modified realism and bizarre pedigree names make specimen presenting a direct gaze to the observer. turn of the twenty first century, where elderly the Bulls kin to the bestiary of fantastical creatures The re-observed and re-constructed objects of the specimens sightlessly gaze at neighbouring in mediaeval art.

80 81 I V.

I. II. III. Displays I. The Donkey Box – II. Harpy Eagle (The Duke) III. Griffon Vulture Surrounded by Moths – I V. The Brotherhood V. Zebra Box – VI. The New Paradise – VII. The Ancestors V. VIII. The Hummingbird Tree VI.

VII.

VIII.

82 83 The New Paradise The Ancestors oil on canvas oil on canvas 160 × 250 cm, 2006 199 × 224 cm, 2009

84 85 Zebra Box oil on canvas 100 × 276 cm, 2009

86 87 Harpy Eagle (The Duke) Griffon Vulture Surrounded by Moths The Brotherhood oil on canvas oil on canvas oil on canvas 171 × 110 cm, 2005 200 × 93 cm, 2010 165 × 241 cm, 2011

88 89 The Hummingbird Tree oil on canvas 214 × 300 cm, 2009

90 91 German text missing For Specimens 2 and 4 Mary Madden

I first encountered Mark Fairnington’s Specimens taxonomical gaze look back at us as we look at works subtly register the active affectivity of the research into, “how humans (re)connect with, series at the Dead or Alive show in Leeds after them. These are works which subtly interrogate past within the present. and disconnect from, their ‘animate [and de- emerging from a long engagement with Mary ways in which classification and display systems The prevalence of theory on the gaze and animated] products’” (Wilkie 2005). Given Shelley’s Frankenstein (Madden, 2012). I was in the sciences produce cultural meaning. the ‘other’ (Jay 1994, Said 1978, Mulvey 1989) our ambivalent attitudes toward animals as therefore susceptible to the paintings’, “almost Fairnington’s carefully depicted encounter with attests to the fact that we never tire of looking companions or foodstuff and a tendency to gothic” fascination (Harewood House, 2002). research subject/object in/dignity is resonant with and relish finding ‘them’ cute and/or threatening. attribute subjectivity to any humanoid form, Pinned in pigment to each canvas was a portrait themes about the unstable boundaries between life Fairnington vivifies the gazes of the specimens specimen gazes inevitably take on new lives of an isolated and oversized Mantis. Each insect and death, fact and fiction, the past in the present, portrayed without crude anthropomorphism. His through the viewer’s appropriation. As Victor portrait is based on observations of original the animal and the human. paintings are also a kindly reminder that there is Frankenstein and Charles Darwin both specimens once extracted from their ecological Although some insist that science is a no such thing as innocent knowledge. The quest discovered, once released into the world, products habitats to exemplify places in a taxonomical fundamentally inventive process (Haraway 1992, for knowledge, even on the basis of good intentions, of research processes are not easily controlled. system. Fragile, desiccated remains had been Tiles 1984), a claim to be scientific is a claim to is in itself absolutely no guarantor against Victor Frankenstein regarded his creature, combined and then individualised by their status objectivity and a guarantor of the production of horror. Spectacular natural history television the product of his research, as horrifying and as scientific samples and as subjects for painting; factual knowledge. Inevitably, this is a claim about documentaries have allowed us to observe animal monstrous at the moment he realised it would then individualised again by their employment power that utilises a set of assumptions about subjects in the most intimate detail and in great acquire its own subjectivity. While he pieced his in the narratives of the viewer. In my mind, man the subject, science, knowledge, the research safety. The gazes in these paintings, particularly anatomical mechanism together, he regarded the sized Mantidae morphed with memories of three process, theory and expertise. Fairnington’s from the predators, provide food for thought about pieces of his project culled from the grave and the dimensional écorchés, the ‘life’ subjects once used painting highlights the fact that all scientific and the dangers inherent in collecting specimens and slaughterhouse as objects of beauty. The horror by artists and medical students unable to draw artistic practice involves embodied observation, in becoming one of the collected. came when epistemology shifted to ontology and directly from dissected corpses. Specimen 2 has interpretation and (commodified) testimony. The Fairnington’s Bull paintings see a shift in his it was clear that the creature would have its own one perfectly poignant intact wisp of antenna. suprarealist effect achieved in his oil painting focus from inanimate object/subjects to, “the embodied subjectivity. Its dull yellow eye opened A damaged limb rests on the stake through its draws attention to the painstaking construction sentient and ambiguous commodities” (Wilkie and the creature gained the power to look back middle; two more are bent in prayer. Its coy, of the canvases while creating an illusion of 2005) humans make of the pedigree livestock at its creator: “Unable to endure the aspect of the waxy defensiveness called to mind André-Pierre transparent access to the truth of the subject. His which HRH the Prince of Wales regards as, “just being I had created,” Frankenstein abandoned his Pinson’s 18th century Anatomy of a Seated Woman. works are based on acute observation enhanced as much a part of Britain's heritage as is her creation (Shelley 1963). Fairnington is a braver In Specimen 4’s knock-kneed splay I read the by photomicrography and fibre optic illumination. castles, her art collections or her historic churches” father and one who is clearly engaged with the ambivalence I perceived in images of flayed They are observations of observations and (RBST, 1996). However, these paintings are part ethics and responsibilities of generative processes. cadavers holding up their skins in anatomy books. representations of representations. of a longer and wider heritage which includes the Fairnington’s later circular eye paintings, The insect subjects that went into the making four black bulls in the caves at Lascaux, France. shortlisted for installation on the ceiling of the of Specimens died a long time ago. Look closely at Just as there is no such thing as Itself (p.75), and Natural History Museum in London as part of Fairnington’s depictions of fake eyes fringed with Specimens formed part of the Fabulous Beasts the 2008 Darwin’s Canopy project, are works poignant lashes and you will see more reflections show at the Natural History Museum in London that again engage with the social and symbolic of the dead. These paintings are a view from the (2004), so a superfluity of genetically and painterly relations of science and sentiment. Each of these natural history museum’s storage depot at the turn modified realism and bizarre pedigree names make paintings is a close up of the eye of an animal of the twenty first century, where elderly specimens the Bulls kin to the bestiary of fantastical creatures specimen presenting a direct gaze to the observer. sightlessly gaze at neighbouring examples. The in mediaeval art. The re-observed and re-constructed objects of the fabric of the museum is breaking through as these Fairnington’s animal and specimen painting

92 93 I. II. Storage I. The Raft – II. Entourage III. The Ambassadors – I V. The Night Watch

III. I V.

94 95 The Raft oil on canvas 225 × 450 cm, 2006

96 97 98 The Night Watch oil on canvas 214 × 351 cm, 2007

99 100 101 The Ambassadors oil on canvas 204 × 256 cm, 2007

102 103 104 105 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS Mark Fairnington 2011 Auction Room, Globe Gallery, Newcastle, Grassie, Eric Racilious, Paula Rego, inc. Fiona Banner, Douglas Gordan, Rembrandt van Rijn, Joseph Mallord Mike Nelson, Jane and Louise Wilson. William Turner. Touring to the Sainsbury Drawing: Interpretation/Translation, Centre, Norwich The Drawing Gallery, Powys inc. Jordan A Duck for Mr Darwin, Baltic Centre for Baseman, Paul Coldwell, Mark Dunhill & Contemporary Art, inc. Tania Kovats, Tamiko O'Brien, Stephen Farthing, James Dorothy Cross, Mark Dion, Charles Avery, Faure Walker, Rebecca Fortnum, Paul Marcus Coates and Conrad Shawcross. Ryan, Chris Wainwright Touring to the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts London Calling, Galerie Peter Zimmermann, Centre, University of Warwick BOOKS AND EDITIONS ONE PERSON EXHIBITIONS Mannheim, Germany 2008 War and Medicine, Wellcome Trust London, 40 Artists – 80 Drawings, The Burton Art touring to The Museum of Hygiene, Dresden 2012 Mark Fairnington, Unnatural History, 2012 Unnatural History, Mannheimer Gallery and Museum, Devon Darwin's Canopy, Natural History Museum, Galerie Peter Zimmermann, Mannheimer Kunstverein, Mannheim 2010 Miscellaneous, Galerie Peter Zimmermann, inc. Christine Borland, Dorothy Cross, Tanya Kunstverein, ISBN 978-3-9808352-9-9 Unnatural History, Galerie Peter Mannheim, Germany Kovats, Alison Turnbull, United Visual 2011 Flora, published by Oliver Sears Gallery, Zimmermann, Mannheim The Moment of Privacy Has Passed, Usher Artists, Mark Wallinger, Richard Wentworth, text by Adrian Rifkin ISBN 978-0-9565485-1-2 2011 Flora, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin Gallery, Lincoln Rachel Whiteread and Richard Woods 2009 The Artist's Studio, Edited by Giles 2010 Bull Market, Bury St Edmunds Art Gallery, Now and Then, Oliver Sears Gallery, Dublin, 2007 Bird Watching curated by Tanya Rumpff inc. Waterfield, Hogarth Arts and Compton Suffolk inc. Martin Brown, Kate Davis, Peter Lothar Baumgarten, Mark Dion, Kiki Smith Verney, ISBN 978-0-9554063-3-1 2009 Private Collection, Galerie Peter Davis, Mark Fairnington, Philip Guston, Bloedmoo, The Historic Museum Rotterdam, A Duck for Mr Darwin, Evolutionary Zimmermann, Mannheim Seán Hillen, David Hockney, Anselm inc. Thomas Grünfeld, William Wegman, Thinking and the Struggle to Exist, BALTIC. 2008 Galerie Peter Zimmermann, Mannheim Kiefer, Leon Kossoff, Joan Mitchell, Robert Wim Delvoye ISBN 0-00-867530-9 2007 Dynasty, Art Agents, Hamburg Motherwell, Sean Scully, Pierre Soulages, Bloody Beautiful, Gallery Ron Mandos, 2008 Arkive City, University of Ulster, Belfast 2006 The Raft, Fred (London) Tom Wesselmann Rotterdam ISBN 978-1-899377-30-5 2004 Galerie Peter Zimmermann, Mannheim 21, Harewood House, Leeds, Norman 2005 Blumenstück. Künstlers Glück, Museum Bloedmooi / Bloody Beautiful, Historical Wunderkammer II, Wunderkammer I, Ackroyd, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany Museum Rotterdam, 6/40 1000.2718786 Kunsthalle Mannheim Jason Brooks, Thomas A. Clark, Maurice A history of flower painting inc. James 2006 Experience and Experiment, Artlab, Imperial College, London Cockrill, Susan Collins, Kate Davis, Mark Ensor, Claude Monet, Marc Quinn, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2003 The Hummingbird Tree, Mobile Home Fairnington, Leo Fitzmaurice, Laura Ford, Fiona Rae, Gerhard Richter ISBN 1‑903080‑05‑03 Gallery, London David Hockney, Sophie Lascelles, Sea Hyun Infallible in Search of the Real George Eliot, 2005 Mark Fairnington, Galerie Peter 2002 Dead or Alive, Oxford University Museum Lee, Neeta Madahar, Ian McKeever, Peter Hatton Gallery, Newcastle inc. Jordan Zimmermann, ISBN 3-9808352-5-1 of Natural History Mitchell, Eleanor Moreton, Paul Rooney, Baseman, Le Ecole de Burrows et Bob Insect Poetics, edited by Eric Brown, Dead or Alive, Harewood House, Leeds Mark Wallinger, Simon Warner Smith, Cullinan + Richards Artlab, Volker University of Minnesota Art and Science, 2001 Staying Alive, Mobile Home, London Blood Tears Faith Doubt, Courtauld Gallery, Eichelmann/Roland Rust, Ian Kiaer, Sian Ede, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 2000 Specimen, Gallery Axel Thieme, Darmstadt The Courtauld Institute of Art inc. Andrea Eve Sussman, Roxy Walsh Blumenstück. Künstlers Glück, Museum Mantidae, Oxford University Museum, Mantegna, Polidoro da Caravaggio, 2004 John Moores 23, Walker Art Gallery, Morsbroich, Leverkusen Oxford Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Adam Liverpool Infallible, In Search of the Real George Eliot, Ace Gallery, Los Angeles Chodzko, Siobhan Hapaska, Grayson Perry Fabulous Beasts, The Natural History ARTicle Press, ISBN 1-873352-83-2 1999 Peepshow, Mobile Home, London Profusion, Calke Abbey Derbyshire, inc. Museum, London with Giles Revell 2004 John Moores 23, Walker Art Gallery, 1998 Gallery Axel Thieme, Darmstadt Johanna Billing, Karla Black, Lucy Clout, The Goat, Medieval Modern, ISBN 1-902700-28-7 Heavier Than Air, Imperial War Museum, Clem Crosby, Jimmie Durham, Martino with Olivier Richon 2003 Transmission Portfolio, Sheffield Hallam London Gamper, Roger Hiorns, John Plowman, University 1997 Todd Gallery, London Daniel Silver, Robert Smithson, Jack Transmission: Speaking and Listening Strange, Marcel Broodthaers Volume 2, Sheffield Hallam University/ Site 2009 The Artist's Studio, Compton Verney, Gallery, ISBN 1-8999-2626-7 inc. Art & Language, John Bratby, Eduard Burne-Jones, Albrecht Durer, Andrew

106 107 Acknowledgements

Berger, John (1980) “Why Look at Animals?” The work for Unnatural History has been in About Looking (London: Writers & loaned from private collections. Readers Publishing Cooperative Ltd, 4–5. Harewood House (2002). Dead or Alive: Front cover Turbo Tommy (detail) Paintings by Mark Fairnington, exhibition oil on canvas, 235 ×330 cm, 2009 flyer, Harewood House, Saturday 1 Jun Back cover Maerdy Tally (detail) 2002 – Sunday 4 Aug 2002, Leeds. oil on canvas, 235 × 367 cm, 2009 Haraway, D. (1992). Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the World of Modern Science. Verso: London. Huysmans, Joris Karl. (2003). Against Nature. London: trans. Robert Baldick, 88. Madden, M. (2012). Articulating Otherness: A Methodological Adventure in Gothic Intertextuality, Qualitative Inquiry 18:4 Martin, Jay. (1994). Downcast Eyes: The denigration of vision in twentieth century French thought. Berkley: University of California Press. Mulvey, Laura. (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures. Basingstoke: Macmillan. RBST (1996). “Native breeds—new rare breeds classification.” The Ark. (Summer), 55–56. Said, Edward W. (1978). Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Shelley, Mary. (1963). [1831]. Frankenstein or, The Modern Prometheus. New York: Airmont Books. Tiles, M. (1984). Bachelard: Science and Objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilkie, Rhoda. (2005). “Sentient Commodities and Productive Paradoxes: The Ambiguous Nature of Human-Livestock Relations in Northeast Scotland.”Journal of Rural Studies. 21 (2): 213–230.

108 Mark Fairnington History Fairnington Mark Unnatural

Mannheimer Kunstverein Mark Fairnington Galerie Peter Zimmermann

Mannheimer Kunstverein / Galerie Peter Zimmermann / Peter Galerie Mannheimer Kunstverein Unnatural History