Stuffed up stuff

By Gena Tuffery, October 24, 2007 @ 9:54 am

Julia DeVille gets some strong reactions to her taxidermy jewellery, but none more so than the time she made a teacher throw up at her Wellington primary school. The shark’s head got DeVille banned from future show-and-tells, but these days her work is more welcomed and her ‘Memento Mori’ show is currently on display at TheNewDowse. What’s the inspiration behind DeVille’s ‘little treasures’?

When did you first discover that taxidermy and jewellery are not mutually exclusive?

It was really just timing. I had wanted to learn taxidermy since I was about 15, but had no luck finding a teacher in Wellington. Then I enrolled in an advanced diploma in engineering in Melbourne in 2003 and at the same time met my taxidermy mentor, Rudy Mineur, who began to teach me this fine art. As I won’t kill anything for my work, I mainly had small birds and mice to work with that I found lying around. I found they worked well in the scale of jewellery and I’ve been using them ever since.

You say your pieces are “celebrations of life”. Do you mean the animal’s life, or life in general?

Both. I really want to make my audience contemplate their own mortality, so they can in turn appreciate life and that is why I choose the subject matter of death. I think the best way to make people realise how important life is, is by confronting them with the fact they will die some day. My philosophy is: you never know how long you will be here, so you may as well make the most of it!

I also see my taxidermy pieces as little tributes to the animal’s life. I make them look peaceful and delicate, almost like they could be sleeping.

So you’re an animal lover?

I am a strong believer in animal rights and several of my pieces comment on the hunting for sport industry. I have created a trophy rug from a kitten for TheNewDowse. The kitten has a fierce look on its face—as fierce as I could make a kitten look anyway—this is saying that a lion when faced with a gun is no more fierce than a kitten. So I guess this piece, as well a celebrating the kitten’s life, is also trying to protect other animals from a cruel fate.

All animals used in the production of your artworks have died of natural causes, but do you ever have your eye on something while it’s on its last hind legs?

Well … my two darling dogs will one day end up as pieces, but I am definitely not hoping for that day. They will be done in lifelike positions so I feel like they are still around.

What do you hope people will get out of viewing your exhibition?

I hope people will be able to see the beauty and fragility displayed in my pieces as opposed to feeling shocked or offended.

My ultimate goal is for the viewer to go home having thought a little about life and death and contemplating the significance of their own life and the lives of the people around them.