By Ranjan Bhaduri
Oct. 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Patricia Piccinini, an Australian artist, had sculpted a creature who was a crossbreed between a human and a dog. It was showcased in a gallery in the year 2003. Today, almost six years later, the sculpture is in the news again. It is being circulated via e-mail to hundreds and thousands of netizens creating unrest among them at the sight of the disturbing pictures. The question coming to the forefront is whether the creatures are real or not. Well, the truth is they are not. They are just the pictures of the sculptures made by the artist years ago.

The artist, Patricia Piccinini who was born in 1965, in Freetown in Sierra Leon, is known for her disturbing artform. She specializes in art that crosses the line between humans and animals. Patricia majored in her drawing from Melbourne. She draws, sculpts, works with videos and also digital media. She uses her super-realistic art form to examine the relation between science, technology, human genome etc. She proves to be a challenge to the classification done by the humans between the organic and the material world. She also tries to find relations between the artificial and the natural. Through her artwork, she shows interest in bioethics, bio-technologies and human-animal hybrids.

The artist’s famous works include, the series “The Truck Babies”. She has been seldom compared to ‘Ron Mueck’. Piccinini uses a number of fabricators to produce her work.

Some time ago one of her works had been used to accompany the story of a girl who was changed into a rat-girl, because God cursed her. Piccinini had to issue an official statement that she was not related to the article in any way and that her work was wrongly used.