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Angela Singer, Still (From the series ‘Dead-eyed’), 2015. Photo by Mark Tantrum
Of ghost birds, floating snouts, monstrous cats and flowered deer, Angela Singer's Second Sight presents a whimsical and fairytale look at dead animals.
However, like all good fairytales, there is a dark undercurrent to Singer’s work. On gazing deeply into their glassy eyes and you might just see how dysfunctional our relationship to the animal world has become—how twisted it is to expect dead things to ‘play alive’ for our living rooms and museum collections.
In Second Sight, Singer's works gives forsaken vintage taxidermy new life using discarded jewellery and kitschy decorative items sourced from second-hand shops and hand-sculpted modelling materials. As both an artist and animal rights activist, Singer has never taxidermied an animal herself. Instead, her works help us imagine a better future for these creatures by celebrating an aesthetic of reclaimed riches, creating something strange and beautiful out of society’s cast-off treasures.
Listen to curator DR Chelsea Nichols and artist Angela Singer discuss Second Sight