Peregrine Honig - Nina's 2nd Artist

Artist #2: Peregrine Honig

UNTITLED, besswax, human hair, doilies, and cotton candy, 2010

            Peregrine Honig is an American illustrator, born in San Fransisco, CA in 1976. She attended the Kansas City Art Institute, and considers Kansas City to be her hometown, and draws inspiration from its infamous number of murders. Her main body of work consists of drawings and illustrations, but her sculptural works are equally intriguing and beautiful. In her work, Honig deals with the concepts of childhood, purity, sensuality, social anxiety, and the gap between right and wrong.

            In 2009-10, she was the runner-up in Bravo’s reality TV show The Next Great Artist. The final series she created for the show consisted of frames, horses, and “beautiful boys” made of beeswax shown alongside her illustrations, and a performance piece featuring herself making cotton candy for the judges. The pieces she showed had a child-like feeling to them, but left behind a creepy sensation at the same time. In the series she aimed to draw the audience in by appealing to their childish natures, and then lead them through a journey of self-reflection.

            I’ve been in love with Peregrine Honig ever since I discovered her art. I think her method of disarming her audience by bringing them back to childhood traumas is effective and relates to my own goals as an artist. The concepts she explores are uncomfortable, and deeply personal, yet easily relatable to everyone.

TWO BOYS, beeswax, 2010

SUBWAY SAINT, mixed media, 2012

BURNING FRAME, beeswax, paper, fire, 2010

THE FAWNS, preserved twin fawns and glass, 2010

Added awesomeness about this piece: these fawns were found inside a doe that had been hit and killed by a car. The little babies never even got to open their eyes. :’(

Sites used: www.peregrinehonig.com

                   http://www.cupcakesinregalia.com/archiveperegrinehonig.html