'Love This'
"LOVE THIS" - inspired by Gretchen Primack's poem
All farmed animals across the globe have their reproductive systems exploited, in order to create more animals or have their bodily secretions to turn into edibles for profit. The dairy industry exploits the naturally occurring mammary fluids of the female, and discards or renders invisible every living component in the creation of that fluid.
The cow – MOTHER - is viewed only as a numbered vessel, to be forcibly impregnated in order to induce a flow of lactate which will be sold as milk. The offspring – CHILD - is by-product, taken away from their mother at birth and either killed or further exploited for profit, depending on gender. Bulls – FATHER – are the most invisible part of the dairy equation, living largely in solitary conditions completely at odds with their natural needs. All endure short lives of violence, commodification and oppression, and all this occurs behind pretty packaging and advertising with misleading and downright dishonest images of pastoral serenity.
So called "happy" or "humane" dairy is a lie, a marketing trick which we have all fallen for over years of indoctrination. The other animal lives behind the lie are kept from our consciousness. All the cows and calves in this artwork were referenced from photographs of real beings, and all are now dead at a fraction of their natural lifespan, in the name of "dairy".
'Chains Of Deceit'
'The University Of Mad Science'
'Mother's Love'
Cows, like all mammals, only make milk when they are pregnant, and their child is removed from them soon after birth so that we can take the milk. Males are killed for veal and females join their mothers as the enslaved of the milk trade. They mourn the loss of each other as would we.
'Pure Joy'
'Royal Ascot (His Dreams)'
'Ghost'
Using horses for sport is ingrained in our society every bit as much as using the bodies of other species for food, and changing that practice will be every bit as hard.
I painted this a few years ago. Titled "Ghost", this represents every horse. Are the blinkers ours? Is the shadowy anonymity placed there by our denial of their choices?
The Birds
