Charlotte Potter
Over ten years ago, a tourist in Jackson Hole, Wyoming asked me:
“At what elevation do the deer turn to elk?” Deceptively accurate to the untrained eye, I take this question on literally in this series of busts that combine the heads and the horns from different species.
Steeped with history and myth, the collision of creatures is sprinkled with farce and majesty; from centaurs (half-human, half-horse) to Janus, the two-headed Roman god representing beginning and end. The binary imagery of these ancient beings, combined with research at the Natural History Museum, birthed the impetuous of these surreal animal hybrids that are part fantasy and part sincere desire to fuse the impossible.
The absurdist notion of colliding two unlike beings into one is the cornerstone of my work. This series began my investigation into the break between myself and the rest of the world. I question the philosophical need for distance and through my work, the allure of fusion.