Find Lots

• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian & International Art
• Sale Date:
  02 May 2016 ~ 6.30pm - Part 1 - Lots 1 - 47
  03 May 2016 ~ 2.30pm - Part 2 - Lots 48 - 320
• Lot #:
  31
• Lot Description:
  Patricia Piccinini
  (born 1965)
  Felicity (Your Time Starts Now) 1996
  c type photograph 3/6 (printed 2001)
  120 x 118.5 cm
  signed, dated and editioned to margin
• Provenance:
  Tolarno Galleries, Melbourne 2001; Private collection, Victoria
• Notes:
  Patricia Piccinini is one of Australia's most acclaimed contemporary artists whose digital photographs, three-dimensional forms and video installations, creatively explore what is real or imaginary in this age of digital enhancement and scientific genetic engineering. Her works thus question the nature and possible outcomes of experimental biotechnology and its potential impact on society. Her extraordinary photographs and three-dimensional forms present hybrid, almost mythological creatures, which are often grotesque and uncanny in appearance. Despite their strangeness and artificiality, they are convincingly real and imbued with a touching 'human' vulnerability that elicits direct empathy from the viewer. The emotive response to these seemingly sentient beings alleviates the unease felt at first encounter, fosters tenderness and heightens our concern for the 'human condition'. In an age of increasing technological advancement and success with genetic engineering Piccinini thus cleverly speculates on the future by first startling the viewer, then through her mastery of detail and nuance, provoking empathy and thoughtful engagement. Felicity (Your time starts now) is one of Piccinini's earliest works. It was first shown in The Mutant Genome Project, a series of three solo exhibitions: Love me love my LUMP 1995, Your time starts now 1996 and Psycho 1997. This series introduced Piccinini's imaginative engagement with science and biology and featured the character LUMPª (Lifeform with Unevolved Mutant Properties) - a genetically engineered artificial form that was presented as the perfect offspring. In Felicity (Your time starts now) the actor and personality, Sophie Lee, is shown lovingly embracing the LUMPª. However, in this collision of the real with the artificial, we do not engage here with the actual person of Sophie Lee, but rather with the construct that is her digitally enhanced and manipulated version. Reality and fantasy thus intersect, and this keen observation made by Piccinini in 1996 about the nature of technology has today through the omnipresence of social media, attained a valency akin to Andy Warhol's much quoted statement of 1968 that 'In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes'. Frances Lindsay AM
• Estimate:
  A$12,000 - 18,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

  Can't see the realised price? Upgrade your subscription now!

• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.