During the Victorian era there was an explosion of scientific enquiry and exploration as the British Empire sent its champions out to discover the far edges of the world and bring fragments of it home to be mounted as trophy and tribute to empiric power.
There are some very beautiful collections in natural history museums and Wunderkammern that survive from this time, but I’ve always felt uneasy about the act of killing, collecting, mounting and displaying living creatures for no better reasons than their beauty and exoticism.
Alexander The Great is a vehicle for me to address my own fascination with natural history in a way that is generative rather than destructive.
It stands as an avatar for the unnoticed world at our feet and a champion for that sense of wonder and exploration that is so easily lost. It reminds us that however great the empires of man may be, they are dwarfed by one that is far older and greater.
Alexander the Great can be seen in the collection at the McClelland Sculpture Gallery in Langwarrin, Victoria.