Christopher Sharp
Intellect and Instinct, 1991–1993, leather, horns, glass, brass, wax, paint, 74" x 76" x 36"
I dance with a darker muse. In my travels, I experienced a disturbing sight that brought about a life-changing situation. A deer had been hit and thrown to the side in such a manner that the bottoms of its legs were woven into the metal retaining wires. The once powerful stag, now lifeless was staked upon its own crisscrossed, stilt-like legs, suspended at eye level. What made this so poignantly haunting and beautiful was the long, graceful muscular neck curving backwards. The tapering neck arched back above the body and terminated with a wilted head, gaping mouth, and bright pink tongue. The emotional conflict of profound sadness and an unnatural appreciation of this perished creature as an aesthetically beautiful object has jarred my awareness forever.
Like Actaeon the hunter, who was transformed into a stag and savagely killed by his fellow hunters, I see our own agony in the exquisite corpse.
