Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead Animals for display and sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals including mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians. The methods that taxidermists practice have been improved over the last century, heightening taxidermic quality, and lowering toxicity.
Why choose such a weird, bizarre act? I find it to an extent completely fascinating. I feel its such a dumb, unethical method of creating work that’s completely alien to me. This is an exploration of my opinions on the .subject and I will be expressing my thoughts throughout this book.
If Cougars were nerds..
It’s commonly known I really, really dislike Taxidermy. I don’t understand the appeal of stuffing a poor animal that has past onto better things and parading it within galleries or in your house for all to see. I’m pretty sure they don’t appreciate it. With this slight hatred their is a side of me absolutely fascinated by it and partially annoyed I can’t understand the appeal of it all. So this Book will be to a certain extent a journey of me
I find Taxidermy such a pointless and weird practice. The thought of mounting deceased animals on the walls of my home freaks me out. I have no appreciation or understanding of why you would want to have a dead Stuffed Animal within your house on display, as I feel it’s pointless and unnecessary. I have the opinion that most people that own pieces of taxidermy, similar to the collected images shown are very strange themselves.
A collection of pissed off looking Stuffed Animals. The images I have collected I organised in a related and similar characteristics. This page is dedicated to the images I felt had Taxidermy victims that look aggressive and displeased. My favourite image is the Top left image, as the bulging eyes emphasise the animals’ state of mind. I feel that if I had to have an animals head mounted in my home, I would avoid these ferocious looking pieces.
Taxidermy has potential.
A collection of depressed looking Stuffed Animals I feel a slight sympathy viewing this collection of distressed and upset stuffed animals. This is a collection of Taxidermy where I felt the animals look particulary depressed or moody, thus making me depressed.
Obviously they had unfinished business.
A collection of People with Stuffed Animals. Normal people find various forms of taxidermy to be strange and peculiar. Others choose to mount themselves onto these deceased animals for the amusement and make coats out of them. I cannot understand the appeal of wearing a coat with a fox’s body still attached to it.
People with Stuffed Animals continued... I can sympathise with people curious about these pieces, and to create work that has some form of aspects of creativity, but I have never understood the appeal of wearing a real fur coat, let alone one with the animals key features still attached. I don’t understand the appeal of having your tongue come in contact with a stuffed Bears tongue.
Lets talk about Squirrels.
They mak great Drin Container
ke nk rs.
The Stuffed Squirrels Section Whilst exploring the world of taxidermy on the Internet, I discovered a incredible amount of images involving Squirrels. There were various forms of modification of this particular animal, a few presented on the right. I noticed that there was an obsession to add human characteristics to these deceased creatures, which whilst peculiar gave personality to each piece.
This was a freelance Taxidermists work that I had discovered, and it continued my belief that the majority of people interested in Taxidermy want to add human traits to their Stuffed Animals. This is such a strange piece I stumbled upon that I find it bizarre you would want to have a squirrel, holding a weapon, mounted on the wall. The piece with the vicious looking Squirrel is even stranger.
Rouge Taxidermy Rouge Taxidermy is the creation of stuffed animals that do not have real life counterparts. They usually are combinations of various animals to create mythological or extinct creatures. I find this to be the most absurd known style of taxidermy. I cannot even comprehend the desire to mutilate the corpses of various animals, to produce a not-so-majestic looking Griffin. The bottom left piece disturbs me slightly as I cannot comprehend which animals were used to create such a strange looking piece.
Weird Modified Taxidermy The next two pages of image collection were some of the strangest pieces of Taxidermy I have come across. Most of the images presented are Abnormal modifications and combinations of Stuffed Animals, some having minor creative aspects. My favourite piece is the tattooed Pig.
Weird Modified Taxidermy continued These freakish creations slightly terrify me. The piece where the animals are forced to smile will continue to haunt my nightmares! I have no understanding of the point to most of the pieces presented on this page. I don’t even understand what half of the creatures presented originally were. I also feel slightly upset for the fox that has been merged with the twisted piece of Wood. The piece I like the most is the Bottom Middle piece, as I feel it’s the most intriguing and the angle that the photography was taken at is interesting.
Animals like to play musical instruments! Right? These images are the ones I felt most desired their subjects to have human characteristics presented within the work. The picture that scares me the most is the top left of the ‘Monkey Musicians’. Why are they wearing such silly clothing and why have they formed a band? I find the image at the middle on the right to be hilarious; the determination in the Monkeys face is fantastic.
Abnormal Taxidermy These images were the pieces I found so strange I couldn’t find any other images to relate to them, so I collected the most strangely unique instances of Taxidermy. The image with the Human Face I felt was very peculiar and odd. I find the image in the top left to be slightly disgusting.
Bizarre Taxidermy Bizarre Taxidermy is similar to Rogue Taxidermy in that it combines and modifies different animals to create these strange things. I find them all to be interesting and to a certain extent stupid. My favourite of the pieces presented is the Tortoise-Snake, as I find it fascinating to look at.
Stuffed animals used as furniture. These two images I stumbled upon show how Taxidermy was once used to create furniture. I find these to image shocking and slightly disgusting. The Elephant Chair I find particularly disturbing for the reason that its body would surround you as you sit down. I find this to be the ugliest side of Taxidermy that I have discovered.
Artistic Taxidermy After viewing the most distressing aspects of Taxidermy with the furniture made of Stuffed animals I found this collection of work to be the most creative and inspiring use of Taxidermy. These were the Images that finally made me believe it was definitely possible to have creative aspects and implementations of Stuffed animals. I feel this is the most positive use of Taxidermy that I have come across.
I began this project with the desire to explore the various areas of Taxidermy and answer my primary question of ‘why is Taxidermy so weird?’ After viewing countless amounts of images, half of them being unidentifiable to what type of animal they truly were, I can safely conclude that most of the Taxidermy I’ve seen is at different levels slightly disturbing. Although I found this to be common with most of the images, the most disturbing images I came across are undoubtedly the two pieces of furniture where rare animals had been used to create Chairs. It was incredible in the sense that someone would actually produce something so shocking and strange. I found the best images to be where Taxidermy had been implemented in a creative manner. This I felt was an acceptable implementation of the deceased animals that was both positive and creative. When I first set out this exploration of Taxidermy my feelings were that it was a pointless and strange medium. I believe that although the majority of work I have seen is very peculiar, there are some creative and expressive ways that the pieces of taxidermy can be shown in an interesting and artistic way.