Experiment Four: Metaphors

“Metaphors are puzzling because they are at once nonsensical and meaningful.. metaphors are creative because they articulate new insights. Thus, what is puzzling about metaphors is that they are significant even though what is significant about them is unfamiliar and not readily traceable to what was familiar’.’ (Hausman, 1989, p. 9)

The next area I wished to look at is the use of metaphors and how they can be incorporated into an image to visually transform the subject and add meaning. I looked at the work of Greg Simkins, who focuses primarily on natural forms and merges them to create often surreal and whimsical pieces. He employs this in a way that often does not have a pronounced meaning and instead leaves the audience to create their own interpretation. I found this technique intriguing as it provides endless possibilities for what the piece could portray. 


In 'The Farewell', the image looks almost familiar at first glance, however you realise that the hand is not attached to an arm acting like a branch. The stem of the flower is also replaced with a key. It seems this could be a metaphor for how everything in life may not go to plan like clockwork, emphasised by the wind-up key placed on the back of the bird. The flower could also be a symbol for how fragile life is. The key in the floating hand could represent how you should not take things that you hold in life for granted, as they may be in your grasp at present however they could be gone in the next. I find all of these possibilities very intriguing, as he has taken the subject matter of natural life - birds, flowers and the human body and has created something with ambiguous meaning and curiosity.

Fig. 22 Greg Simkins The Farewell (2014)

In addition, his piece 'In High Places' also uses the merging of different organic lifeforms to create completely new and surreal forms. The shark fin and floating bird may represent that not everything is as it seems, as the water appears to be a solid surface at first glance. The deer transforming into a tree trunk and forming into the large beak perhaps is a symbol for thinking before you speak, as it seems the beak taken place of the deer's head. Using metaphors seems endlessly intriguing, especially for stand-along imagery, in order to create meaning and to transform something which may at first seem familiar into something more extraordinary.

Fig. 23 Greg Simkins In High Places (2009)

Influenced by Simkins, I wished to explore his technique and create a subject which merges natural forms to create something new. I chose the figure of the Okapi as I felt this animal was already visually intriguing and the natural patterns lend themselves well to visual interpretation.

Metaphor Experiment

I tried to emulate Simkin's use of natural forms to create a new form, I did this by morphing the Okapi's legs to look as though they were forming tree trunks and roots in the ground. I also incorporated a wood-pattern into the Okapi's naturally occurring stripes to create a further sense of merging as one form. I felt that Simkin's work is quite surreal and as my objective is to inform I did not wish to venture too far away from the natural form of the Okapi, however I feel it still achieves a sense of metaphor, perhaps through the idea of something wild and free becoming rooted in the ground.