Julia deVille: Gentle Activism
fluoro spoke with taxidermy artist Julia deVille about her ongoing role as an animal activist and how her work highlights an issue through a touch of light-hearted humour.
deVille’s current exhibition follows the same food based theme as her previous show ‘Sarcophagus’ and is still heavily themed around animal rights. “I talk about the way we eat and use animals in our society and am trying to highlight that people probably wouldn’t eat or participate in certain things if they knew what actually went on in a lot of these industries,” says deVille.
deVille’s creations aim to celebrate the life of the animals, and through art induce change and generate discussion about eating choices.
(f) How do you achieve the balance between humour and a serious issue in works such as ‘Neapolitan’?
(JD) The ideas come to me naturally – I think you have to be a bit light when you are talking about serious topics so that you don’t turn people off. Animal rights is a serious issue, but there is also a way of engaging people and drawing them in. I want my pieces to be approachable. I don’t want to make grotesque or shocking things, I want my works to celebrate the animal’s life and show how gorgeous they are. In the past I have come from a harder line, but it doesn’t work, if you say “don’t do that” or “that’s wrong it is unethical” people tend to just shut down straight away.
Because of the popular feedback these works such as ‘Neapolitan’ receive, they open the dialogue of the meaning behind it. ‘Neapolitan’ highlights that while most people choose to buy free-range eggs they will still buy products like mayonnaise and ice cream, which most of the time still have battery eggs in them. It is a gentle way of talking about something that is confronting to people. It is much easier to start the conversation when you start with a bit of lightness.
(f) Do you think your works are contributing to raising people’s awareness about animal rights?
(JD) I have had people email me to say that they have become vegetarians after learning from the things I have discussed in my work. I have also had people stop buying lots of products once they have understood what went on. It’s my belief that if most people honestly knew what went into getting something to the table, they you wouldn’t want a part of it.
(f) The animals you work with are either donated to you or found. Are your works driven by ideas or the materials you have to work with?
(JD) Occasionally I have an idea that I really want to do and I will go looking. For a while I had wanted to do my piece ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ which used a stillborn calf. ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ speaks about cruel practices within the dairy industry that I am quite against. A stillborn calf is not an easy thing to find and eventually I found a farm vet who was able to give me one to work with.
Normally I take with what I am given and work from there, I might taxidermy the animal first and then adorn it later, while other times I might have the animal and taxidermy it the way I want. I have recently acquired a stillborn giraffe that I am working on for my next solo show.
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The next twelve months are a particularly busy time for deVille and as she prepares for a number of exhibitions including, The Sydney Contemporary Art Fair and a show at the National Gallery of Victoria.
deVille’s current show at Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane, Australia is on display until Saturday 24 August 2013.
