For this project I was given the starting point of 'animals', I then decided to examine the link between human and animal and explore our innate animalistic tendencies. Thanks to the process of parallel evolution I think it’s no coincidence that our range of personalities dovetails so tightly with the personalities and behaviours of animals in the wild. Our genes are 98% identical to chimpanzees, so are they really that different from us? In today’s society our animal instincts are supressed by modern life and we forget what we essentially are. Man is an animal, but we no longer acknowledge it. I wanted to question whether we should reawaken our bottled up instincts to encourage and engage with who and what we fundamentally are.
I started with a drawing sheet where right from the start I aimed to explore this animalistic and human blend idea. I used my own photos to draw from when doing the horse, iguana eye and the human eye. I merged the iguana scales out onto the human eye hoping to create this impression of fluidity whilst experimenting with this human animal idea. Also exploring how tiny fluctuations and mutations in our DNA could have resulted in a completely different human race to how we know it.
For my final piece I wanted to explore our animalistic connections further. I wanted it to not only answer the exam questions of “animals” but for it to look deeper into who and what we fundamentally are not just as humans but as animals. By placing the ape and the woman side by side I wanted to create a direct parallel between them whilst also creating an argument for evolution. The wrinkles on the elderly woman’s face are so similar to the wrinkles on the apes face and the apes eyes are so human and filled with emotion I think it helped to convey our connection with them. By concentrating on the eyes I hoped to suggest that because our eyes are so-called “windows into our souls” that animals too have souls and emotions just like us; posing questions about what really makes us so different? I created both of their eyes so that they are looking directly into the viewer, aiming to confront the viewer into recognizing how alike we actually are to apes: challenging creationism debates whilst also creating a strong argument for animal rights.
