Brian Longfield | Manitoba Wildlife Imaginary

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Brian Longfield, "Happy Polar Bear," no date

acrylic on canvas, 24″ x 24″

For some time I have been interested in the factors that grant subjecthood, personality, and character to our perception of others. In earlier work, this interest lead to work using masks to create performance-based work with my partner, Charla Ramsey in which performance of characters using theatrical masks was used as the basis for work that became drawings, paintings, videos, and installations. More recently I have been making paintings of animals to explore their subjecthood.

This exhibition encourages seeing animals as beings with thoughts and feelings but it is interesting to note that the personalities and emotions we ascribe to animals are not likely to be their actual feelings but are based on our human perceptions of human emotions. While many animals do indeed have emotions and feelings that can be observed and recorded by behavioural scientists and certainly people who live with pets develop a sense of their pets’ emotional life, this exhibit is not and cannot function as a substitute for that. It does however act as a small stepping stone towards it.