Bull ! 2008

I have been admiring Felieke van der Leest’s work for quite some time now. When I saw her upcoming exhibition on Klimt02, it was just what I need as an excuse to write about it. The exhibition “F.I.B.S. (Festival International de Bêtes Sportives”) starts on the 27th of November until the 13th of December at gallery Deux Poissons in Tokyo.
The title of the exhibition is French for ‘international festival of sporty animals’. It refers to the Olympic games that were held in China in 2008.
This brooch is called Bull ! 2008, and refers to the Olympic sport of Archery. Here, the bull, is the ruby nose of a tiger. The perfect golden arrows, all the neatly sewn green sequins and the beautiful crochet work show that the brooch has been very well made. If the tiger doesn’t attract people’s attention then its sparkle will.
Tigers, are a protected and endangered species. In China, they are a symbol of power, energy and bravery, as well as good luck. Their skin is a status symbol and their bones are said to have medicinal power. Unfortunately many of them are shot for these reasons and not much is done by Chinese officials to stop the killing. The very surprised looking tiger in the brooch has just been hit by six arrows!
It is hard not to take the message seriously.

Biopsy II

In a lot of cases a biopsy is done with a hollow needle. This means that the sampled tissue that comes out, is round on the outside. What the sample looks like under the microscope, depends on lots of things. I could not have imagined it looking like this brooch ‘Biopsy II’, by Islay Taylor.

One of the most striking things about this brooch is the reflective property of some of it. All the rougher parts, and the wires sticking out, reflect light. This is shown in the top photograph. It must have been something very dangerous coming out of that body! No matter what the medical reasons are, I love the way it looks. The rest of the brooch is white, still, not a color you’d expect of a piece of tissue. But I don’t mind, it works really well in combination with the reflective bits. So beautiful, to see the color white used as the darker part of the piece.

Another interesting thing about this work is the suggestion that something has been taken from inside the body, and then it is worn outside of the body. It is all about the luminescence of inner beauty!