Page 68 - WTP Vol. VII #6

The Ape Drawing Project
“Discovering the inner lives of higher primates and their relation to us through drawing gorillas at the Franklin Park Zoo has been a monthly ritual of mine for twenty-five years. When I sit a glass wall away from the gorillas and draw them in charcoal on paper, they look so familiar. I can see parts of myself in their eyes, hands, breasts. One gorilla leans against her elbow to watch me. She looks down at the drawing and back up at me. She watches me as I watch her. Because gorillas exist somewhere between animal and human worlds, they represent divine beings
to me. I am a silent observer when I draw at the zoo—a gorilla conspirator—of the zoo’s visitors. If they see me, it’s as another exhi- bition. It’s as if I’m another gorilla. The zoo experience as a metaphor brings up larger cultural ideas, including animal nature vs. human nature and civilization vs. savagery. I watch the self-conscious attention to class, society, and aesthetics. Zoo visitors watch gorillas live their lives as entertainment but are oblivious to that. The Ape Drawing Proj- ect means to communicate what I see when I am with the gorillas, which are both vulner- able and strong, trapped and free.”
61
Kiki I
mixed media on wood 48′′ x 36′′
JEn BraDlEy