In a recent work I brought a new material into relation with the animal bone I have been using - the skin of garlic. Lying in the studio, the stalks of the white garlic, (a gift from organic growers down the Valley), always looked to me synonymous with my collected kangaroo bones, femur-like knobs and lanky, bleached-white stems. The idea of vampires, hence flesh and blood, was implicated. It was not until I had inserted two kangaroo ribs to the hollowed stalk-skin of the garlic, because they seemed to fit so perfectly like sprouting stems, that I realised that I had raised the question of animal genetic material in crop plants. Intuitive connections made at a visual level can evoke further connections made through reason - thus recognising the gene-splicing I had symbolically enacted, I came to ruminations on my own doubt about spirit as distinct from the material body, and so to question the roots of my unease about our new power for genetic manipulation.
My suite of five small works titled x why Monsignor Garlic? 2003, was exhibited at Spirit Level, Sydney, December, 2003.