Peter Madden

Ram Mount

Artwork Detail

Sue Gardiner writes of Peter Madden: "In his secret and possibly idealist worlds there is a marriage between danger, romanticism, strangeness, reason and sentiment... the fear of catastrophe is always delicately balanced by beauty." Madden's sentimental surrealism recalls the work of Joseph Cornell. In Ram Mount a kitschy plastic animal head, a trophy on a heraldic wall plaque, has been feminised and gothicised with the addition of long eyelashes, blackened eyes and black tears - it's a little Marilyn Manson. No horns are visible, seemingly usurped by a crown of nesting trompe l'oeil butterflies. These images have been cut from encyclopedia plates and folded to resemble real butterflies, although alternative texts on their undersides give the game away. (Snake Oil, 2005)

Title
Ram Mount
Artist/creator
Peter Madden
Production date
2004
Medium
found object & found images
Dimensions
300 x 250 x 200 mm
Credit line
Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, 2004
Accession no
C2004/1/27/2
Copyright
Copying restrictions apply
Department
New Zealand Art
Display status
Not on display

To find out which artworks are available for print requests and reproduction please enquire here. This service only applies to select artworks in the Gallery's collection.