Roadkill art
Annick Faubert turns dead animals into art,
Annick Faubert is a vegetarian who isn’t afraid of putting her hands on dead meat.
The 39-year-old Waikato artist is a taxidermist. But she’s ethical about it – she’s never had an animal killed for her art.
Her work will be shown at Raglan’s Art Weekend, running January 27-29. She will be one of more than 30 artists exhibiting from both their home studios and the Raglan Old School Arts Centre.
Animal hides have always been of interest for Faubert, who grew up in Canada with a father who hunted. But taxidermy started seriously five years ago, after she stumbled on it when looking for a rug on Trade Me.
‘‘I saw a deer hide was for sale in the rug section for one dollar and I thought, I will tan it myself. So I bought it and it worked,’’ Faubert said.
She works largely with road kill and is now known in the coastal town of Raglan as the person who collects dead animals.
‘‘I work at the barber and hairdresser and Raglan is a small town. People know me and they bring me in animals. People show up at the hairdresser’s with this dead thing in their hands while I’m working and say, I just found this on the side of the street and I thought you would like it.’’
She once had a man bring her a wallaby he found near Rotorua. She is yet to complete that project – it’s sitting with quite a few other donations in three freezers in her workshop.
Faubert does all the work herself, from opening up the animal and emptying the body contents (she feeds it to the eels that live in a ditch near her workshop) to tanning the hide, filling it with expanding foam, sewing it up and adding the finer details so it is ready for display and purchase.
The animals have to be in a relatively good condition, which means maggot free – so freshly dead is preferable.
‘‘Sometimes you see something and it’s too flat to make out. Other times it can look like it’s still alive – that is great.’’
If there is a bit skin or limb missing, Faubert lets her artistic flair come to the fore, using parts from different animals or strategically placing flowers. It’s all about recyling, she said. ‘‘Whenever I would see the hunters throwing away all that skin, I would question it.
‘‘So what I do is trying to preserve what is left, trying to recycle most of the animal. If it’s going to die, at least use everything out of it.’’
She hopes that people can see taxidermy as art
‘‘People either hate it or love it. It’s funny, because some people aren’t shy about telling me that they hate it. I think because it is taxidermy, it’s OK to be grossed out. But sometimes I am, like, people! I am standing right here! But I don’t take it personally.’’
On display on Faubert’s wall is a raccoon she brought back from America to remind her of home.
There is also Harry the hedgehog.
It took four years to find him as it’s difficult to find a hedgehog that ‘‘hasn’t been completely squished’’.
A piece can take anything from a day to three weeks to complete and prices range from $150 for a stoat to $4000 for a glass-encased peacock.