Richard Orjis

Richard was very into creating his own little world and cult/religion. His photography for the series Welcome to the Jungle is quite interesting and in his mind is the cult of Christchurch. For this he did a piece of performance art involving a kind of ritual to the coal as if it were a god. He also invited people to come and coat themselves in coal soot and then have their photo taken. It struck me as a little odd when he first told us all about this in the lecture, however it made sense when paired with the actual works that came from it.

There is an Australian artist called Patricia Piccinini who does a similar sort of thing in terms of back rounding her works. Piccinini does quite a range of art including photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. In her series Nature’s Little Helpers Piccinini makes weird and wonderful silicone creatures that seem to make you feel quite disgusted. They all have quite ape and human like features, yet have a very creepy, alien ugliness to them, as if genetic modification gone wrong. In an essay Piccinini writes about how certain things cannot be undone and it becomes apparent that she is talking about the environment and the extinction of certain creatures. This doesn’t surprise me as Australia has a lot of endangered animals. Piccinini’s work is founded on this idea of technology vs. nature, and the possibility of technology fixing nature. Her sculptures are incredibly detailed and uncannily real. She says this is because she wants it to all seem believable and I think she completely succeeds in this. The viewer has no choice but to be pulled into this world and see her judgements about today’s society and environment.

I think Richard has succeeded in this too, but has done it in quite a more direct way.

Performance art is quite forceful in this sense. To fully understand Richard’s work (and most other performance art) you have to let go of reality and let yourself participate in the piece. Along with his performance piece go a series of photographs, mud drawings, and ‘Photoshop flower people’ images that all add to the Welcome to the Jungle cult.I think using a created fantasy world as a base for art works is awesome. For the viewer it is always a fresh and intriguing experience, and for the artist it is quite personal in the sense that it is a real piece of them.