We fell in love with Caitlin Hackett‘s painstakingly detailed ball-point pen and water color paintings back in Hi-Fructose Vol. 17, so we decided to catch up with the artist. Hackett has produced a vast volume of work this year, including personal pieces, works for charity group shows such as Pangea Seed’s “The Great West Coast Migration” and “Wild at Heart: Keep Wildlife in the Wild” at Thinkspace, as well as commissioned story book illustrations and tattoos. Drawing from her childhood growing up surrounded by nature as well as her fascination with environmental science and mythology, her latest works disturb and fascinate with their unnatural portrayal of the natural world.
“I love two headed creatures, maybe it’s because I’m an identical twin myself and I feel that I could have been a two headed creature, or in some ways I am, having another ‘me’ in the world, if only in looks. I like the idea of having two separate and sentient minds in one body,” Hackett explained. “I am also fascinated by the idea of mutations and adaptations, the way in which human interference, mainly in the form of chemical pollution, creatures bizarre and horrible mutations, multiple heads and eyes, extra limbs that hinder more than help. However there is a rich mythical history of multi-headed/limbed beasts throughout the world from Hydra and Cerberus to the Kitsune, so the idea of something with more heads or eyes or other limbs having more power, or being somehow mystical is also embedded into our psyche.”
