Ivan Pollard

Dislocation, 2008
Acrylic and Pencil on Canvas

Artist's statement:
“William Blake once wrote a poem.
Horton heard a Hoo.
White men can’t jump.
And the biggest African Elephant on record was shot in Angola in 1955, stuffed and mounted in the rotunda of the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.  It was nearly fourteen feet tall and weighed more than 27,000 pounds.
And yet, in today’s world, what is an elephant?  A freak show, a tourist trap, a money-making asset, a misbegotten symbol of a world that is slipping rapidly away.  It is no wild animal, no majestic spirit of the African plains.  It is not a natural wonder.  It is gone.
The mighty become small; the small become important; the great become ordinary and the milk becomes a longer lasting item in the fridge.   
This piece reflects the decay of the natural order and the emptiness of this sterilised world. 
One day we will all be elephants.”