F1:1 Red deer (rsa show)

F1:1 Red Deer Stag Head fixed to a lead filled plinth. He has a fine silver ear tag with F1:1 on one ear. He represents not only the relationship between humans and animals over the years, but also the difficulties faced by this ongoing relationship. Ownership, Land, Humans and Philosophy of the care taking ethic given to us, as in biblical references: Genesis 1:27,28 Many of the things we do which we think at the time are right, such as The moving of animals by humans into new habitats, where they have bred with existing species creating Hybrids. (or have endangered other species habitats) lack of culling, which has caused interbreeding, and starvation. The fact that only certain people have been allowed to cull deer in particular, and others when caught have been imprisoned. some of my thoughts came from Living on an island with an abundance of deer, and having to buy meat pre packaged in plastic which has been shipped from far away, and contains additives which the animals were fed. I had a lot of difficulty in buying a deers head for this project, in the end managing to source one in London, and then had difficulty getting it shipped to Uist. Most delivery companies would not take it as it was an animal ( over 200 years old) and in the end cost more to get it here than to purchase it. All these ideas fed into my work for the RSA show. I had many people telling me that I needed to fix him up to make him look better, but the point of it all was how old and worn he is, an how bad the taxidermy on him was done. Yet he still retains his dignity.