Review: Chimaera

"Strong Message Gets Through"
By Terence McKenna
Hawke's Bay Today, 2nd June, 2004

"Chimaera" is an exhibition where meaning is everything. This exhibition provokes the viewer to think about good and evil and about how effective the work is as a political statement about genetic engineering.
How the viewer reacts to these works is bound to be subjective. They are quite well constructed as paintings, but this is secondary to their message, which I thought is effectively conveyed.
In general there is cohesion between the method, statement and imagery. The paintings themselves are accomplished, with interesting and successful components being their strongest quality.
Most of these paintings work on the premise that human feeling and emotions are projected onto the animals in the paintings to evoke feelings of empathy. In some, such as "Pure Blood", there is overt pathos, but most have a sentimentality about animals being inherently beautiful and innocent, and being hurt by the actions of humans. In reality these are projections of human emotions and thoughts that animals don't have, but make effective messages about the harm that can be done.
In an exhibition that relies so much on the meaning of work several questions arise: is the role of beauty undermining the message, and what in painting effectively evokes horror and evil?
The artist uses beauty in that the beauty of animals and the beauty of paint are emphasised.
I thought that this created a degree of mixed message, perhaps lessening the degree of horror that could be achieved. It does make the work more accessible, however, giving the viewer an easy way to relate to the work.
In some works the creatures begin to resemble mythical monsters, or of the cosmic order gone wrong, which in terms of the statement about genetic engineering is effective.
It is interesting and unusual to have an exhibition with such a strong and consistent political theme, fulfilling one of the possibilities of art that is often avoided.
Go and have a look, and make up your own mind.