Household Forensics

My sculptures have always transformed familiar household objects into sculptures with surprising and sometimes unsettling meanings.   In Household Forensics the animal, vegetable and human collide. I chose fruits and vegetables that have forms that are analogous to those in the animal and human world.  In Lemons, as with my other “recombinants”, I use humor to highlight the strangeness of engineered species, and reference similar forms in humans and fruit, such as nipples.  In Potato Eyes I inserted human eyes for the blind eyes of the potato.  In Hatchlings, I built on fruit’s reproductive function in plants as an ovary, and had baby birds hatching out of oranges. In Witness II (Re-seeding), (though bioengineered fruit cannot actually re-seed), I put human ears on cantaloupes, and imagine the life forms having a memory:   These cantaloupes with ears are witnesses, and vessels of memory of their former selves. 

Suzanne Proulx