Birds of a Feather... not Audubon’s
Enrique Gomez de Molina’s sculptures are fascinating, humorous and unsettling. He uses the parts of once living animals that he sources locally from vendors and farmers and purchases online. But unlike taxidermy, no animal gives its life in the service of his work, nor is he interested in the sport of having trophies for his wall. His rogue taxidermy oeuvre is part of emphasizing recycling, waste reduction and using materials that are ethically sourced.
Gomez de Molina sheds light on human kind’s changing of the natural world; his message is to bring an awareness to the dangers faced by multitudes of species through nuclear and chemical waste, deforestation, and human invasion. He implores us to consider how genetic engineering and human intervention will cause a forced evolution and what the future will hold for our children and their children etc.
The irony of Gomez de Molina’s work is that his creatures are beautiful. The artist disarms the viewer with beauty and then makes us excavate beyond the surfaces into the real meaning of the work. These surrealist, fantastical sculptures are not solely about the exploitation and oppression of animals, but rather impels us to think how we need nature and the animals that exist in it and how they guarantee that the environmental cycle will continue; If forests are decimated to build malls, where will the birds nest? We know that if birds can’t nest, they die. The job that the birds do in pollinating and keeping the flying insect population in check will be eliminated. Audubon was appropriate for his time; Gomez de Molina is taking us into the 22nd century.
Bernice Steinbaum, Director