Rhinos in Mysore Print

Taking the taxidermy emporium of van Ingen in Mysore as inspiration, the arrival of several rhinoceroses at the factory has been reimagined by a six year old. Reproducing this work for Saatchi art, the blithe cruelty of the scene is palpable. Look at the way in which one animal is shrouded in chains whilst another lays slumped over a block, axe hung ominously above its back. Whilst the rhinos' bulk is admirably suggested, the humans are reduced to stick figures, their own burden expressed through bent backs and grimaces provoked by physical endeavour. This is a factory of processing - the natural world transmogrified through pain into delicate articles of interior fashion. Those trinkets of history are now largely worthless, as are the imperial world views of the people who bought them - we think. From the pen of a 6 year old the scene initially takes on a prehistoric quality. Nevertheless the viewer is haunted by a sensation that what we are seeing is at once archaic yet at the same time unsettlingly contemporary.