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To celebrate a return to New Zealand in 1990 to work in a new studio in Auckland, I started this still life series to investigate the sense of being a white New Zealander (Pakeha in Maori) through the theory of 'abjection' [Abjection: fear and disgust turning into desire, the inside becoming outside, outside becoming inside through bodily functions and death].
We camouflage food with language so it does not seem what it is i.e. 'sweet breads', 'junket', 'haggis'. Supermarkets repackage meat so it is unrecognisable. On a more sophisticated level we hide meat and offal in another language we do not normally use, for example the French 'Steak Tartare', for raw minced beef.
As an American consumes a McDonald's Hamburger he consumes American Free Enterprise Capitalism; consumed by the ethics of capitalism's social, political and economic order. As Pakehas forget the British 'meat stew and two veg' and become accustomed to new Asian fusion recipes and their country's natural ingredients, they change into a new, hybrid culture. We are all defined culturally in what we refuse to eat, what we eat and how we eat.
These paintings are of food newly purchased, presented to the viewer as if they were the consumer opening their purchases from the market place. Before the first veiling of truth descends there is abjection, that which was once alive is now dead, but will live again as the consumer's body. The visceral paint is both sensual and terrifying.
Further reading:
Irigay, Bionomics.