Kevin Kelly Dissecting One’s Nature : une exposition d’histoire naturelle
OBORO
Opening on Saturday, March 25, 1994, at 4 pm
My most recent installations address the relationship between nature and sexuality. This has been an underlying theme in my Natural History installations. I am most interested in examining the theoretical-visual fields of research and anatomy, specifically focusing on the significance of anatomical diagrams which depict reproductive systems, or by focusing on the history of humans controlling nature to master and/or exploit it.
The works are inspired by anatomical drawings of the 1500 and 1600’s by Andreas Vesalius and Regnier de Graaf. These drawings, which are so remarkably plant-like, suggested to me that anatomical parts resemble and are in fact elements of nature even if they do not fit standard phallic and yonic stereotypes. They utilize male and female body parts as plants to transcend the assumption that nature is purely a female entity.
These three Natural History exhibits, Garden of Intimate Delights, Dissecting One’s Nature and The Creation (The Whirlpool Theory) are fictitious constructions which question how much of science and its theories are also such constructions. I am interested in making dialogues about how Natural History institutions present narrative imagery that seems factual or unquestionable, as if science has a monopoly on “Truth”.
OBORO
Kevin Kelly is an artist who has been living in Montreal for ten years. He has studied at the University of Victoria and at the Jan Van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht. His work has been shown extensively in Canada as well as in solo and group exhibitions in Iceland, Holland, the United States and Japan. He is a fabulous cook whose favourite dish is gado-gado.