Artwork
Amazonia: Allosaurus (femur bone, USA)
Lucy + Jorge Orta, 2010
- Ref: 5509.01
- Materials: Laquered glass, Royal Limoges porcelain fossil cast, enamel drawings
- Dimensions: 60 x 85 x 20cm
- Exhibition history: 2011 Gallery Motive Amsterdam, Holland
- Courtesy: The Artists
- Concept: The porcelain fragments of life are tender and precious, recording the wonders of shapes and forms of bygone times and the present. They are casts from specimens in the Natural History Museum collection: a limb bone from the dinosaur Allosaurus. Bones are memento mori, reminders of death, yet the flowers, butterflies and insects that populate it point to the cycle of life and the beauty and wealth of our planet. The act of drawing can be seen as the activity of life itself. There is an underlying melancholy of the end of time, and the hot breath of extinction. Seeing ourselves as occupying a moment in time, through the reflection of the mirrored surface of the vitrine, makes us question our arrogance over nature and the need to work with it rather than against it.
