Peacocks
These peacocks borrow human mating plumage, anthropomorphically showcasing our adaptations and natural orders as their own. They are made of fake fingernails, barrettes, nail polish, false eyelashes, and jewelry to represent the choices involved in biological processes that are unique to humankind.
Quoted from curator Jennifer Scanlan's essay for my show, Flight of the Dodo:
"Roth’s peacocks are bejeweled examples of the unnatural ways in which humans mimic nature. The splendor of the male peacock, long a symbol of vanity and self-importance, has the biological function of attracting a mate. Roth’s peacocks are bedecked with an avalanche of bling: fake fingernails, barrettes, false eyelashes, and nail polish—all ways in which humans (largely females) manipulate and falsify nature, perhaps with the intent to attract their own mate.. At first glance, the birds are humorous parodies of human vanity. At the same time, the aggression of their poses is undeniable. In Roth’s hands, beauty has an underlying current of danger, and vanity becomes violent."
