Use your art to create change, to speak up for those who are less lucky — namely, the animals — and you’ve already got a fan in me. Our Hen House’s Art of the Animal series focuses on artists who do just that — use their remarkable talents to build a strong voice for animals.
Case in point: Elektra KB is a provocative artist whose work speaks volumes for those who, for a variety of reasons, cannot speak for themselves. She produces work in media from photography to paintings to, perhaps my favorite, multimedia art that combines textures, images, and often video. Though greatly varied in platform, these pieces speak loud and clear of the suffering that is undergone by animals, women, and the broader category of those who are oppressed. Elektra expresses the absurdity and hideousness of it, and the oftentimes sadly ironic twist — that the oppression of one group can lead to the oppression of another.
According to her blog:
My work is focused on the alienating experiences of humanity and anti-natural behaviors and the absurd self-destructive path that humanity seeks. The human capacity for barbarity which encompasses: war, oppression, total disregard of other species (speciesism), terrorism of state, genocide, sexual aggression and objectification of women, false moral, or as I call it double moral. I like to confront humans in respect to what they really are in a materialistic dialectic state, because it is something universal; blood thirsty anthopocentric predators that live in a perpetual state of hierarchy. Humans are alienated from their own humanity and animality. We live in an era where malignancy hides behind a make-up plastered facade, where we are not necessarily able to connect faces with evil deeds.
Elektra’s series, “Revenge of the Piece of Meat,” shows the relationship between the oppression of animals and women. Here are a few pieces from that:
by Elektra KB
By Elektra KB
By Elektra KB
Elektra also took her harrowing series and made a must-see video along the same lines.
Learn more about this bright young artist at elektrakb.blogspot.com.
Got talent? Put it to use for the greater good. Help animals through brush strokes, written words, theatrical monologues, lyrics, whatever. The world is waiting.