Kate Breakey photographs dead animals in black and white then hand colours them in. The colours look amazing as if they were shot that way. The animals in the photographs are all dead, however some look alive. Even though they are dead they are still beautiful. I find some of her photographs sad.
"The natural world is chaotic and unrelenting and randomly cruel. I know this from living in the brutally harsh desert, where the little deaths are constantly tugging at my heart. In an attempt to compensate, I have collected up the dead and given them kindness and attention. I have constructed symmetrical shrines where they can have their memories and dreams in a kind of imaginary afterlife. Here in my theatre, the quail chicks have flight and love, the Cottontail is off to find his mate- as if in a children’s storybook- rodents sing and the geckos are lovers. Greek mythology, Aboriginal Dreamtime legends, Aesop’s Fables, are all here in my studio where I can have my own memories and dreams with these animal spirits".
Kate Breakey 2006
'Small Deaths'
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