Nathalia Edenmont « Muybridge's Horse

Nathalia Edenmont

I’ve seen Nathalia Edenmont’s work here and there on the internet over the years, but recently I’ve been spending some time reading about her and her process and want to represent her unique artist philosophy here. As opposed to many artists who claim that they do not have a direct role in the death of the animals depicted in their artworks, Edenmont has a reputation for killing and preserving animals for the exact purpose of creating photographs. In a 2006 interview with Vice, she states, “I used to cut up animals all the time when I was a housewife, so why not do it for my art? And I always use perishables—it’s not just fresh, but alive. And I’ll only use the heads and the eyes. That’s actually the only part I’ll do all on my own, I’ll have assistants helping me with everything else... I buy rabbits from a farm. The animals there are a bit deformed since they’re all just going to be transported to a factory where they will be made into restaurant food. If you look at the eyes that I’m using you can see that they’re misshapen.”

Edenmont’s still lifes and portraits have probably received the most attention, but I think her butterfly photographs are terribly beautiful.

From the artist’s statement: Photography is able to contain and mimic the same hypocrisy that colored my upbringing. In photographs, wilting flowers bloom long after they have withered. When the blood in my images still looks vivid and alive, the blood in reality has long since congealed and clotted, much like the ideals that once were so vivid in my youth.