Patricia Piccinini

Patricia Piccinini (born 1965) is an Australian artist who works in a variety of media, including painting, video, sound, installation, digital prints, and sculpture. Her work conveys concerns surrounding bioethics and helps to visualise future dystopias. Piccinini's works have been closely associated with and interpreted as posthuman due to their subjects. In 2003, she represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale with a hyperrealist sculpture of her distinctive anthropomorphic animals, and she is known for her commissioned work The Skywhale, a large hot air balloon resembling a whale-like creature.

Early life and education Patricia Piccinini was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in 1965 to Teodoro Piccinini, an Italian builder, and his wife Agnes Piccinini, an English teacher. Teodoro had experienced World War II when he was seven years old, and recalled his village being bombed and villagers being shot by Nazis in the street. Agnes came from a very poor Irish family living in Liverpool, England. Her mother became gravely ill with stomach cancer during her high school years, at which time Piccinini started exploring medical research that included cloning, and reproducing an organ in another body. features commercially available designer babies called LUMP (Lifeform with Unevolved Mutant Properties). Her Protein Lattice (1997) series features nude models posing with computer-generated mutant rats. The two series explored the commercial side of science and brought up the question of ethics.

The Protein Lattice series was inspired by the famous Vacanti mouse experiment in 1996, which formed a human ear on a rat. The research's objective was to learn more about cells, and how humans can possibly regrow body parts.

2001–2010

In 2002, Piccinini presented Still Life with Stem Cells,

Also in 2002, she produced The Young Family, representing the growth of replacement human organs in other creatures.

In 2003, Piccinini represented Australia at the 50th Venice Biennale. The work exhibited was We Are Family, an exhibition which displayed humanlike mutant figures behaving like humans. The work was accompanied by a soundscape composed and produced by François Tétaz.

The Long-Awaited (2008) was a later work attempting to explore the theme of empathy through a lifelike sculpture of a child cradling a manatee-human hybrid.

Her 2010 work, The Comforter, depicted a young girl covered in hair, holding an "other-worldly creature". Piccinini received only A$8000 of the cost, which she mostly spent on visits to the manufacturer in Bristol, England. Graham: a 2016 sculpture for the TAC's public safety campaign "Towards Zero"

In 2016, the TAC commissioned Piccinini to work in collaboration with Dr. David Logan, a senior research fellow at the Monash University Accident Research Centre, and trauma surgeon Dr. Christian Kenfield, for Project Graham— as part of the TAC's road safety campaign Towards Zero. "Graham", a lifelike, interactive sculpture, highlights how vulnerable the human body is to the forces involved in auto accidents. As the TAC explains: "Graham highlights the changes we need to make to protect ourselves from our own mistakes on the road. At the centre of this system is the belief that human health is more important than anything else, he is the embodiment of the Towards Zero vision."

In July 2018, her diorama The peace between lightning and thunder was installed at QAGOMA in Brisbane, once again accompanied by music created by François Tétaz.

In 2019, the National Gallery of Australia with the assistance of the Balnaves Foundation commissioned Skywhalepapa for the Skywhales: Every Heart Sings project. This work is a companion to the female Skywhale, although they are not necessarily mates. Piccinini has stated that she created Skywhalepapa because she "thought it might be wonderful to present an image of a masculine carer; a Skywhalepapa along with his offspring" and that she "wanted to celebrate the evolution of fatherhood".

2021-present As part of the inaugural Rising Festival, Piccinini created the exhibition "A Miracle Constantly Repeated", which was her first extensive hometown show in almost two decades. The exhibition ran from May 2021 until June 2022, as a result of delays resulting from COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as high demand. Taking place in the Flinders Street station ballroom, and consisting of a combination of hyper-real silicone sculptures, dioramas, video, sound and light, the exhibition explores humanity’s relationship to technology and the environment, and conveys Piccinini's empathetic vision of a future built on resilience and care.

Art practice Piccinini works in her studio Drome, in Collingwood, Melbourne. She thinks of an idea, which she first draws, then works on a 3D model based on an artificial man she keeps in her studio called Dennis. She uses purchased and donated animal and human hair, and she employs expert staff who help to sculpt, make moulds, or paint her creations. conveys concerns surrounding bioethics, and helps to visualise future dystopias.

According to her 2002 National Gallery of Victoria biography: Piccinini has an ambivalent attitude towards technology and she uses her artistic practice as a forum for discussion about how technology impacts upon life. She is keenly interested in how contemporary ideas of nature, the natural and the artificial are changing our society. Specific works have addressed concerns about biotechnology, such as gene therapy and ongoing research to map the human genome... she is also fascinated by the mechanisms of consumer culture."

In a 2014 interview with The Sydney Morning Herald, Piccinini said of her work, "It's about evolution, nature – how nature is such a wonderful thing, we're just here to witness it, it's not here for us – genetic engineering, changing the body".

Piccinini's works have been closely associated with and interpreted as posthuman due to their subjects. The depiction of vulnerability through themes of mutation, reproduction, motherhood, and childhood explores the economy of death. Her work affirms that posthuman ideology and femininity is liberation from modern practices such as genetic engineering and animal farms. For example, Piccinini engaged in the theme of surrogate motherhood, and inter-species relationships to convey environmental turmoil. The surrogacy invokes concerns in regards to scientific exploitation, and rejects the idea of a normative human species.

Piccinini has publicly stated that she is a feminist. In an interview with Jaklyn Babington, formerly senior curator at the National Gallery of Australia, Piccinini stated that she is "incredibly interested in nurturing and care and the way that has been marginalised as 'women's work' in patriarchal society. I believe that in a feminist world, nurture and care should be at the forefront of our minds and not limited by gender or anything else".

Critical reception Art historian and critic Sasha Grishin, who taught Piccanin at ANU, says "There's a deeply intellectual aspect to her work", and that she is "probably Australia's most prominent artist today, a major figure on the world stage" (as reported in 2021). and her engagement with issues such as cross-species relationships: "Given the current state of the planet, in which political leaders are allowing the most blatant forms of racism and ethnic tension to become normalised, Piccinini's interspecies fantasies seem horribly far-fetched."

Screen studies professor and animal ethicist Barbara Creed says Piccinini's work is loving and heals wounds of divisions: "In profound ways, Piccinini's artistic practice calls to the spectator to consider a new way of being, a new form of opening out an embracing difference, through new ways of looking ... that encourages us to look alongside and with her creations while reminding us we are all animals."

In May 2017, Artforum featured Piccinini, in which professor of contemporary art Charles Green commented on Piccinini's style of hyperrealism. In his review, Green acknowledged the “unfashionable” hyper-real style associated with the late 60s and commended Piccinini for putting her own spin on it. Green reasoned that by creating an intriguing narrative Piccinini was able to make hyperrealism appealing to the general audience.

Recognition and academia In 2014 Piccinini received the Artist Award from the Melbourne Art Foundation's Awards for the Visual Arts. Natasha Bieniek's portrait of Piccinini was a finalist for the 2022 Archibald Prize.

Personal life Piccinini married artist Peter Hennessey, having been together since around 1988 after meeting at Sydney University, and they have two children. Her sister, Paula, is a barrister and CEO of a family violence organisation, and her brother-in-law is journalist and shareholder activist Stephen Mayne.

In March 2005, three works titled Undivided, after being shown at the Robert Miller Gallery in SoHo, New York, were all sold, achieving prices of up to $US110,000. In 2005, the Art Gallery of New South Wales held an exhibition of her work titled patricia-piccinini, from 17 August to 9 October 2005.

In 2011, Nick Mitzevich, director of the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) in Adelaide, a great fan of Piccinini, held a survey exhibition of her work at the gallery,

In 2015, an exhibition of her work was held in the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil in Rio de Janeiro.

A joint exhibition with the work of Joy Hester, titled at Patricia Piccinini & Joy Hester Through Love..., was held at TarraWarra Museum of Art in 2018.

In April–May 2018, QAGOMA in Brisbane held a large exhibition showcasing Piccinini's most well-known work of the previous 20 years as well as a suite of multisensory installations especially created for the gallery, titled Curious Affection. In conjunction with the exhibition, presented as part of the World Science Festival, a cinema project of the same name was held at the Australian Cinémathèque, featuring films selected by Piccinini. It included a range of science fiction and horror classics, along with animations and documentaries.

Collections Piccinini's worth is held in many major art collections in Australia, including many in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and at the National Gallery of Victoria. Her works are also held by the MCA, and Art Gallery NSW.

A DVD of her 2007 film The Gathering was acquired by the Monash University's Faculty of Science in 2013, and is held in the Monash University Museum of Art.

The Stags (2008) is held by National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC, gifted by lobbyist Tony Podesta, who is a fan of her work.