Friday 27 January 2012

Jack Niven "Universal Mule" - Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans

1 comment:

  1. Jack Niven

    "For several years now, since moving to New Orleans in 2005, I have been painting pictures that feature animal characters as the principal protagonist, hero and antihero all rolled into one. For many years before that, I made pictures that featured people. Animals are less complicated. Although, in some ways, they are potentially more freighted by projected human attributes and desires. My use of animal depictions of late has more to do with reflecting human dilemmas, frailties and victories; aiming for a reading that is at once universal in the manner of a deft logo, for example, and emotive, after the fashion of a catchy tune or the lingering sense that one gets from a memorable line of prose.

    The piece I made for American Beauty, South is called Universal Mule. Admittedly, a broad reading of southern literature and folklore is relatively new and ongoing for me, my previous knowledge of its scope limited to the greats such as William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor or Cormac McCarthy. Within this context, then, one of the things I have noticed is the preponderance of mules in southern landscape, folklore, art and history. This has, for me in this instance, been distilled to a notion of things 'mulish'. In the same way that mules once served as the engine of a rural economy, and still do in a small way, their character as a quotidian symbol is a potent one to invoke on many levels. Hence, the Universal Mule I have called upon here is the everyman among us. I wanted this mule to stand as witness to the highway from a cosmic trajectory".

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