Output details

Paintings of eyes in A Duck for Mr. Darwin: Evolutionary Thinking & the Struggle to Exist

The output is five paintings by Fairnington (Orangutan, 2008, Gorilla, 2008, Zebra, 2008, Gnu, 2008 and Bison, 2008), all engaging with Darwin’s description of the eye as it is outlined in ‘On the Origin of Species’ (1859). These paintings were shown in ‘A Duck for Mr. Darwin: Evolutionary Thinking & the Struggle to Exist’, a group exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, curated by Alessandro Vincentell. Other artists in the exhibition included Christine Borland, Mark Dion, Dorothy Cross, Tania Kovats, Mark Wallinger, Richard Wentworth and Rachel Whiteread. All the artists in this exhibition had also been selected for the ‘Darwin’s Canopy’ project launched by the Natural History Museum, London to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the life and work of Charles Darwin. ‘Darwin's Canopy’ was curated by Bob Bloomfield and Bergit Arends, and the panel to select the ten artists and the winning proposal included Sharon Ament - Director Public Programme NHM; Richard Cork - Art Critic; Sian Ede - Art Director Gulbenkian; Judith Nesbitt - Chief Curator at Tate Britain; Judith King - Art Curator and Advisor to English Heritage; Isabel Vasseur - Art/Architecture specialist.

Fairnington’s paintings were derived from multiple photographs of eyes displayed as specimens in the Natural History Museum collections. One other painting by Fairnington, ‘Meardy Tally’, a depiction of a life-sized Charolais stock bull, was shown alongside the paintings of eyes in ‘A Duck for Mr Darwin: Evolutionary Thinking & the Struggle to Exist’. For each of these paintings the specimens were photographed many times, and these multiple viewpoints were brought together through the painting process into an apparently exact translation and single image.

The publication for the exhibition examined facets of Darwin’s life and the works exhibited.