Sculpture

Fake Taxidermy of Troy Emery

Troy Emery

Troy Emery describes his work as “fake taxi­dermy,” which is a per­fect descrip­tion. Using high-den­si­ty taxi­dermy foam, he cov­ers forms in resin, yarn, pom­poms, and more. With names like Wooly Woofter (above), they strad­dle the line between being an exot­ic ani­mal and com­plete­ly rec­og­niz­able. Troy’s work is cen­tered around the idea of col­lect­ing ani­mals. Using dif­fer­ent but equal­ly out­ra­geous ele­ments, his sculp­tures the­mat­i­cal­ly fit togeth­er. This is fur­ther explained in his artist statement:

Troy Emery cre­ates suites of art­works where dis­lo­cat­ed ani­mal forms are brought togeth­er as a col­lec­tion through a uni­form approach in their con­struc­tion and mate­ri­als, becom­ing pas­tich­es of each oth­er and the idea of a col­lec­tion of ani­mals itself. Troy Emery’s work is about how the his­to­ry of our rela­tion­ship with ani­mals is under­pinned by our abil­i­ty to give mean­ing to them and use them in alle­go­ry and metaphors.

A ten­sion between dec­o­ra­tion and rep­re­sen­ta­tion is present when look­ing at ani­mals. They are not only liv­ing crea­tures: Ani­mals can be seen as dec­o­ra­tive objects. Pets dec­o­rate liv­ing spaces, furs dec­o­rate the body, ani­mal pat­terns dec­o­rate fur­ni­ture, taxi­dermy dec­o­rates the muse­um dio­ra­ma, and hunt­ing tro­phies dec­o­rate the hunter.

All images via his web­site.

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