Sunday, May 31, 2009

canine creation.

"Tillamook Cheddar is a Jack Russell Terrier from Brooklyn, New York. Widely regarded as the world's preeminent canine artist, she has already had seventeen solo exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. Tillie is eight years old."



"The artist's primary process is a dynamic color transfer technique. In preparation for each of Tillie's works, her assistants assemble a touch-sensitive recording device by affixing pigment-coated vellum to a sheet of lithograph paper backed by mat board. The artist takes the prepared "canvas" in her mouth and brings it to her workspace. Working on the outside surface, she applies pressure with teeth and claws in a methodic ritual marked by dramatic shifts in tempo and intensity. The resultant sharp and sweeping intersecting lines complement the artist's delicate paw prints and subtle tongue impressions, composing an expressionistic image that is revealed on the paper beneath when she is finished. She works with shocking intensity, sometimes to the point of destroying her creations."









"The most successful living animal painter."
-The Art Newspaper

"A masterpiece of conceptualism."
-Time Out New York

"A sham."
-Jerry Saltz, Village Voice

"When possessed by an artistic vision, Tillie is fearless."
-AKC Gazette

"[Because of tillie] I have had to rethink two of my most basic assumptions about art and life: first, the notion that animals cannot have an aesthetic sense; second, the core conviction that no sentient being could possibly paint anything worse than what Julian Schnabel recently showed at the Gagosian Gallery."
-James Gardner, New York Post (May, 2002)



* images and text courtesy of http://www.tillamookcheddar.com/index.html.
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