‘The Gold Room’ is very different from my other dining room pictures. There is just a macaque on a dining table, reminding us of human conventions by its defiant presence and pointing up the difference between animal and human. It is a nod to Sartre and his distinction between Being-in-itself and Being for itself. Humans must choose what to make of themselves and how to present themselves while animals cannot help being themselves. It’s a theme that recurs in literature, notably in DH Lawrence where animals, reptiles and birds represent singular and absolute being. This self-possession makes them fascinatingly different from humans, so full of concealment and self-consciousness, and it is something I want to express in my series of the non-human.
