SUBMISSION: Pharmacopeia by Chris Musina

Inspired by the horrific events taking place in rhino habitats - this painting has been used in presentations by the San Diego Wild Animal Park about saving the rhino. Chris also says "We feel the ground shifting beneath us, we teeter on the brink of collapse - and in this the key to our survival lies in the connection to our closest kin -- the animals. Existing in a space between the wild and the domestic, the humorous and the horrific, the acceptable and the absurd, my works dismantle the way we look at our beastly brethren. Riffing on art history, natural illustration, hunting kitsch, museum dioramas and the like, I aim to interrogate what is animal and who the animals are, in an attempt to erode the comfortable boundaries between nature and culture. I am doing this via life sized oil paintings and post-taxidermic sculpture - populated with animal protagonists who stare back at the viewer in an uneasy gaze; asking for compassion, mercy, or simply to be put out of their misery."Chris has more great work on his website www.chrismusina.com