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the RADIOACTIVE beasts series (2022-2023)

Radioactive Beasts is EMA’s 2023 project inspired from George Orwell’s Animal Farm and focused on the war in Ukraine and the risks of nuclear disaster.

Since humans became mad, the animals of the farm send silent messages asking them to take seriously the threat this conflict entails for all forms of life on earth. In dangerously polarized times, the Radioactive Beasts are telling humans to restart talking about peace.

Nine paintings of different sizes compose the series. The first eight Radioactive Beasts were projected in Times Square, New York, from 21 to 27 April 2023, with support from ICAN – International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate for the role played by ICAN in fostering the adoption of the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

ASCENDING PIGS (2022)

Oil on canvas, 81×60 cm

“There, comrades, is the answer to all our problems. It is summed up in a single word– Man.”

ASCENDING PIGS REEL
ASCENDING PIGS – YouTube

 

Let There Be Donkey (2022)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 54×46 cm

“Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey.

LET THERE BE DONKEY REEL
LET THERE BE DONKEY – YouTube

 

The Last Dawn (Nuclear Cockfight, 2022)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 54×46 cm

“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question.

THE LAST DAWN (NUCLEAR COCKFIGHT) – YouTube

 

 

Neutral Cows (2022)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 54×46 cm

“But at this moment the cows, who had seemed uneasy for some time past, set up a loud lowing.” 

NEUTRAL COWS REEL

 

Fatal Eggs (2023)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 80×60 cm

In Animal Farm, the hens correspond to the Ukrainian peasants who resisted Stalin’s plan and died. 
‘He ordered the hens’ rations to be stopped, and decreed that any animal giving so much as a grain of corn to a hen should be punished by death.’
Fatal Eggs is also the name of a novella by Kiev-born Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov.
 

 

Suicidal Sheep (2023)

WAR IS PEACE – YouTubeAcrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 120×160 cm, 4 canvasses, 120 x 40 cm each

‘Of late the sheep had taken to bleating “Four legs good, two legs bad” both in and out of season, and they often interrupted the Meeting with this.’
This painting represents those politicians, journalists and ordinary people who, uncritically, or because of their vested agendas, drive everyone towards nuclear disaster.
 
‘Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away
Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air
You better watch out
There may be dogs about’
Roger Waters

SUICIDAL SHEEP – YouTube

 
 
 
 

War Is Peace (2023)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 81×65 cm

‘As soon as they were weaned, Napoleon took them away from their mothers, saying that he would make himself responsible for their education. He took them up into a loft which could only be reached by a ladder from the harness-room, and there kept them in such seclusion that the rest of the farm soon forgot their existence.’
 
‘War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.’ (1984)
 
 

Last came the cat (2023)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 81×65 cm
 
‘It was soon noticed that whenever there was work to be done the cat could never be found.’
 

 

HIROSHIMA FARM (2023)

Acrylic and acrylic markers on canvas, 162×162 cm, 6 canvasses, 81 x 54 cm each

In Hiroshima Farm, all the characters of George Orwell’s Animal Farm are gathered together, walking on what is left of humans who did not do anything to stop their war against themselves and the planet. The lessons of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not learned.