722248This painting explores how humans are unnecessarily cruel to rabbits through their utilizing them for drug and makeup testing. Drugs and cosmetics both used to be tested on prisoners non consensually. This was deemed justifiable because criminals are viewed as pests to society, so many believe they deserve this as punishment. However, more recently, corporations have shifted to animals as test subjects. And the same justification of this unethical act remains. Rabbits are viewed as pests because they eat flowers and vegetables from gardens. This is why the rabbit is holding a mug shot plate in its hand, and there are blue lines of shadow emulating prison bars, symbolically equating it to a prisoner. The blue and pink colour scheme, along with the hands coming out from the side of the page, create a surrealist environment akin to a drug induced, disconcerting, hallucinatory state that the rabbit is in due to the testing. The person has blood red lipstick, to symbolize what rabbits and other animals have to go through for humans to be able to wear it. It is sort of like “blood money” in the way humans exploit animals for gain, so we can have drugs and makeup. |