The Butcher Boys by Jane Alexander

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Recommended: Art criticism essay

The Butcher Boys by Jane Alexander On a small wooden bench, in a quiet room of the Cape Town art gallery, sit three statues better suited to the dark catacombs of a Stephen King novel. Jane Alexander's Butcher Boys are the most frightening pieces of art I have ever seen. The three sit innocently on a bench amongst fine English portraits lining the walls, their pitch-black, glassy eyes staring sightlessly back at the many accusing faces. With their mouths sealed, the life-like, powdery-coloured forms sit motionless, while you convince yourself that their animal-horn-topped heads are not about to turn and stare you in the face. Through careful analysis and deduction of the various components that make up this remarkable text, this essay hopes to unravel the reasons behind the impressions and feelings brought about when it is viewed. The way in which the artist positioned her works, the room wherein they are situated, the texture of their "flesh" and the symbols they represent all have a role to play in the impression they create. One theory about The Works is that they represent the mindset the Apartheid period.1 With these figures having been constructed during the Apartheid era in South Africa, by a South African artist, one can see how references to the ways of thinking of that time would be plentiful. 1. Online News Hour, 13th march 2003 Let us look at the statues in the context that they appear in the gallery. They are positioned just to the left of the main entrance, in full view of anyone who walks through the doors. Taking the Apartheid idea into account, it seems as though they are the "watchers" of the galler... ... middle of paper ... ...ths. This symbolizes the way in which the controlling forces in Apartheid chose not to listen to, hear or see what was going on in their country. Horrific human rights crimes were committed and like these daemons they just sat and stared at their accusers in defiance. These figures are now permanently punished for the wrongs that they represent. § Horns are the traditional symbol of evil. The devil has horns. In the horror genre, the way to portray a character as a daemon or as purely evil is to give that character horns. From a Christian point of view The Three could distortedly symbolize the three forms of the holy deity i.e. The Father The Son and The Holy Spirit. When related to the concepts of the daemon horns and evil, we feel a deep sense of unease, as the morals and our sense of right and wrong are reversed.

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