Patricia Piccinini Quotes

How does contemporary technology and culture changes our understanding of what it means to be human. What is our relationship with - and responsibilities towards - that which we create.

Most of the work I make uses materials that are a bit outside of the traditional fine art world.

The illusion of life is crucial for the work, otherwise the ideas wouldn't be able to jump across, people wouldn't engage with it.

Perhaps because of this, many have looked at my practice in terms of science and technology, however, for me it is just as informed by Surrealism and mythology.

I am particularly interested in the way that the everyday realities of the world around us change these relations.

I certainly don't see the humour in my work as something that detracts from its seriousness. It's just a way of making difficult messages more palatable.

I feel that there's hardly any irony in my work; if there's anything, there'll be sincerity, which people sometimes find hard to deal with.

I don't think 'Dark Heart' has to be malevolent. It conveys a sense of depth. There is a sense of questioning turmoil.

Ideas rather than methods are central to they way I work, although drawing plays a central generative role in everything I do.

I usually have several things on the go. Whether it is my own drawings for the next work that I am working on while a sculpture is being fabricated or several works at different points in production.

I would say my work is anti-ironic.

Melbourne is a fantastic place to work, but it's not the centre of the world.

I work with whatever mediums seems best suited to evoking the sorts of thoughts and emotions I am interested in playing with.

I started thinking of digital imaging, not photography, in 1994 as it seemed the most appropriate way to deal with ideas of biotechnology and advertising. My practice is conceptual.

The way we look at nineteenth-century English social realism and appreciate the working classes of the emerging industrial revolution.

Materials are very important to me, and always have been.

I struggle in life to find a sense of joy in things.

Artists make worlds for people to walk through.

Of course, all my work is photographed and I also take quite a lot of photographs of work in production.

We always use resin instead of polyurethane, even though it takes more work and is in places where it can't be seen, because resin tends to be more UV stable than urethane.

Obviously, I don't make an entire edition all at once, so the studio often goes back to produce editions, but that's a bit different. I guess I'm always thinking about the next work.

Quality and longevity are the primary criteria, along with repairability and ease of production.

I have had sculptures cast in bronze, silver and aluminium. My drawings are all graphite or pigment ink and gouache on paper.

My Father is a photographer, so it was always around. I was trained in painting, so I learnt a lot of skills about composition, light, colour, the formal attributes of images.

The studio does a lot of testing before we settle on a system. Unfortunately, this means that price tends to come pretty far down the list.

We always use plywood rather than MDF for structural stuff for the same reasons [stability].

Now that other people have my works, it's really important to me that what they have has longevity.

I don't connect accessibility with lowest common denominator.

I tend to work towards specific exhibitions, so there will often be a big push towards the end when we're finishing off a bunch of stuff.

The studio keeps notes on the details of editions and production processes and the like.

I have a database of all my works that I maintain to keep track of works and editions.

I pretty much keep everything; we have drawers full of samples and tests and every old catalogue and magazine.

The silicone we use is the hardest, most UV stable we can get, and we have done enormous amounts of testing and research to get a paint solution that is extremely hardy and repairable.

It's much easier to do something that's seen as being serious because people accept it right away, they don't question what you do, they just accept, because they think you must be right.

If there are moments in my work when people find joy and humour, that's a real success for me.

I use whatever media I think will best express my ideas and therefore I don't have a lot invested in the idea of photography specifically. I am more interested in Art.

It's interesting to work with what's important today, which is meaningful for our everyday lives.

I don't set out to make something that is repulsive and that would scare people. I know that some people don't like what I make, and don't find it cute, but that's hard for me to understand.

As we get older, our world gets smaller and we start to doubt and question. We are really suspicious of difference.

Thinking is a social process. I talk to everyone from children to anthropologists and philosophers. I try my ideas out on people and they talk back to you. That's how ideas get formed.

I don't want the ideas to be limited by what I can physically do. The ideas come first.