April 30 - May 12, 2001 Calici Smile

New Zealanders have an odd relationship with rabbits. On the one hand they are described in folklore as loveable creatures – the storybook Peter Rabbit who cheekily stole lettuces from Farmer McGregor’s garden or the portrayals of the Easter Bunny who delivers chocolate to children – cute, fluffy and harmless. But rabbits are one of the earliest realized villains in environmental damage and affecting farmers by causing devastation to grazing fields. Paul has memories of the problems on the farm when he was growing up “… rabbits were considered a threat to the community, we used to go and round up the cows and see how many rabbits we could shoot as we went – there were hundreds of the bastards”.

Controversial remedies like the spread of the Calcivirus in the 1990s (where, in an act of home grown biological terrorism, illicit production and distribution of the virus occurred before it was legalised) interested the artist and Paul produced a body of works concerning rabbits in this period. Previously they had made the odd appearance, most as small witnesses, posed beside incongruous elements like seashells and mermaids.