Artist Statement
My art practice investigates animal/human relationships during moments of ecological disaster and panic, and uses textiles, natural materials, and antique taxidermy to explore methods of consumption and the potentials for hybridity. My work looks into the cultures of longing surrounding animals, tensions with nature, and all bodily futures in the anthropocene. I am interested in the incredibly complicated space taxidermied animals hold in Western culture: simultaneously reflecting hyper-destructive colonialist scientific enquiry, the kitsch of a hunting trophy, the rarest of luxury items, and a profound desire to understand and touch the aspects of nature that we have ecologically devastated. My current developing body of work, "An Unpierced World", uses habotai silk (a human/animal technology) to tightly wrap the forms of antique taxidermied birds from around the world, obscuring nearly everything but the man-made frame around which their skin has been sewn. With their meat and bones already divested, what does a piece of taxidermy become when its skin is covered? What ghost of an object is that?



Bio


Lizz Hamilton is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. She received her BFA from University of the Arts London: Central Saint Martins, and her MFA in Studio Art from the University of Kentucky. Her studio practice uses textiles, antique taxidermy mounts, and natural materials to explore human/animal relationships in the face of ecological devastation. She collaborates with Samantha Hensley to write and illustrate The Museum of the Vanishing Dog, a project that explores museum culture, relationships with historical narratives, and the limits of curation. She lives in San Diego, CA and works as an independent writer and researcher for several local universities, specializing in diversifying historical narratives within art and design programs. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally.