Studio Orta

Bones are memento mori, reminders of death, but the egg is birth, the start of life.  The imaginary  flowers, butterflies and insects point to the cycle of life, fragile specimens so miniscule  to go unnoticed, or that simply disappear even before being discovered. There is an underlying melancholy of the end of time, and the hot breath of extinction. The porcelain fragments of life are tender and precious, recording the beauty and wealth of our planet, past and present.  The motifs enameled onto the surface are drawings conducted by the artists during their expedition to the Amazon in 2009.  The act of drawing on the past can be seen as the activity of life itself.  
Lucy + Jorge Orta cast this porcelain replica from a specimen in the Natural History Museum palaeontology collection, an egg from the elephant bird Aepyornis. This is a unique work in a series of ten eggs.