Angela - The Visionary Artist Transforming Vintage Taxidermy into Powerful Statements on Animal Rights

Angela Singer (born 1966 in Essex) is an artist of British and New Zealand nationality who lives in Wellington, New Zealand. An animal rights activist, she addresses the exploitation of animals and the environment through the repurposing and remodeling of vintage taxidermy, a process she calls "de-taxidermy." Since the 1990s, her work has been exhibited both in New Zealand and internationally.

She is not related to Peter Singer, the animal rights activist and philosopher.

Education

Singer graduated in 2002 from the Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland, with an MFA. She lives with her partner, artist Daniel Unverricht, in Wellington, New Zealand.

Art

Since the mid-1990s, Singer's art has explored the human and non-human animal relationship, driven by her concern with the ethical and epistemological consequences of humans using non-human life and the role that humans play in the exploitation and destruction of animals and our environment. Singer sees the boundaries separating other species from humans as permeable.

She sculpts in various media, including modeling clay, wax, fiber, ceramics, gemstones, and vintage jewelry, as well as wool and silk. Many of her sculptural works combine mixed media with vintage taxidermy. Singer is known for working with vintage hunting trophy taxidermy, which she recycles into new sculptural forms to explore the human/animal divide. She calls this practice “de-taxidermy,” a process that reveals the wounds inflicted on the animal, which are obscured by the taxidermy process and its attempted "rescue from time." Singer incorporates into her work some of the history of the death of the animal, which she obtains from those who give her the vintage taxidermy.

Like Karen Knorr, Singer uses old hunting trophies or vintage taxidermy that natural history museums have discarded. Some of the trophy taxidermy she uses is found discarded in dumpsters and garbage piles. Curator Jo-Ann Conklin writes:

"A number of artists in the exhibition react to human treatment of animals and the environment. New Zealand artist and animal activist Angela Singer rails against trophy hunting. Her latest work, Spurts (2015), depicts a decapitated deer with cartoony yet still gruesome bubble-gum pink 'blood' spurting from its neck."

Activism

Singer is an artist and an animal advocate. Like other artists such as Sue Coe, she is concerned with the ethics of using live animals in art. She will not work with living animals or have living creatures harmed or killed for her art. In the early 1990s, she worked with the animal rights group Animal Liberation Victoria, Australia (ALV), on an antivivisection campaign.

A quote from Singer regarding her use of taxidermy as an art form:

"I think using taxidermy is a way for me to honour the animals’ life, because all the taxidermy I use was once a trophy kill. ... The very idea of a trophy animal is sickening to me."

Exhibitions

• Curious Creatures & Marvellous Monsters: Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington, New Zealand. August 18 – November 4, 2018

• The Sexual Politics of Meat: The Animal Museum, Los Angeles, USA. February 25 – April 30, 2017

• Dead Animals, or the Curious Occurrence of Taxidermy in Contemporary Art: David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. January 23 – March 27, 2016

• Ecce animalia: Museum of Contemporary Sculpture, Poland. March 8 – June 15, 2014

• Points de vue d’artistes: Universcience Cité des sciences et de l’industrie, Paris, France. September 23, 2013 – March 1, 2014

• Unnatural Natural History: Royal West of England Academy (RWA), Bristol, UK. July 14 – September 23, 2012

• Controversy: The Power of Art: Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Victoria, Australia. June 21 – August 12, 2012

• The Enchanted Forest: Strychnin Gallery, Berlin, Germany, May 13 – June 5, and Musei Civici, Palazzo S. Francesco, Reggio Emilia, Italy, June 17 – August 31, 2011

• Reconstructing the Animal: Plimsoll Gallery, University of Tasmania, Centre for the Arts, Australia. March 18 – April 15, 2011

• The Enchanted Palace: Cabinet of Curiosities, Kensington Palace, London. March – November 2010

• Creature Discomforts: The Suter Art Gallery Te Aratoi o Whakatū, Nelson, NZ. May 13 – June 21, 2009

• The Idea of the Animal: Melbourne International Arts Festival, RMIT Gallery, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. August 12 – November 18, 2006

• Animal Nature: Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. August 26 – October 2, 2005

• Animality: Blue Oyster Art Project Space, Dunedin, New Zealand. June 24 – July 5, 2003

Angela Singer's innovative approach to art and activism continues to challenge perceptions of animal rights and the ethical implications of taxidermy, making her a significant figure in contemporary art.