Eve de Jong - Red End

Artist statement

The rhino is symbolic not of a particular endangered species, which it is, or even of wildlife in

general, but the represents any creature under threat. The three rhinos are electro-mechanically

enhanced, evolved into bionic rhinos, presenting the idea that these animals may only survive with

some form of technological enhancement.

So too with the artist, as digital technologies open opportunities for expression but also pose

challenges to authenticity and creativity through the increasingly rapid development of artificial

intelligence.

My practice as an artist originates in the most basic materials – recycled everyday objects are

reshaped to form something new, an alternative representation of natural objects. Far from the

hum and glow of sleek digital artistry, I work with the detritus of the industrial age to highlight the

ecological cost of our way of life. Heat and wire and plastic, cut, bruised and burnt hands, working

to tell a story out of the objects we discard.

The bionic rhino is a product of the imagination, the one attribute the human artist uniquely

possesses, and in this ungainly form lives on regardless.

Eve de Jong