Everything but the squeal…Everyone has feelings about meat, whether 
positive or negative. Images of meat may conjure up feelings of hunger 
or disgust. It has been depicted, particularly during the Northern 
Renaissance period (1500–1615), as a metaphor for life, death, abundance, 
hunger, gluttony, and family. I have a close personal connection to meat 
as well, my father is a butcher, and I have spent a dozen years of my life 
cutting meat. Only recently have I begun to explore it as a subject for art.

This series of paintings uses metaphor and parody to raise questions 
about meat and its role in art and society. My intention is to study meat 
as a subject for still-life and parody in art throughout history and create 
work which combines and extends each of these genres.

The paintings juxtapose traditional still-life painting and the more
contemporary process of screen-printing. The idealized images and text 
are adopted from advertising collateral from the 1940s and 50s. The meat 
itself is painted from life in a more realistic manner. The result is intended 
to raise questions about the complexity of beauty, humor and society at large.