The series centres on the right to say what we learn to hold back in order to be accepted.
These are the thoughts coexistence asks us to soften or silence, stated without apology. More than a mere provocation, the series carries the same legitimacy as the thoughts we are willing to hear. An opinion is “unsolicited” when the person receiving it would have preferred not to hear it. It is precisely where the truth begins.
The choice of animals answers this premise, as they do not calculate the social costs of what it perceives, inhabiting a perception that precedes self-censorship. This is why every figure has an animal head on a dressed body, in a deliberate split. The body wears the language of acceptability while the head, the seat of gaze and voice, belongs to ancestral instinct. The garments are the codified repertoire of appearance, the way the body arranges itself as desirable and accepted. The vignette has historically been the place of permitted transgression, as satire paves the right to say the uncomfortable things under the protection of the drawing. A final irony lies in the craft. The printed blue, ornate frames, the patina of a collectible card give Unsolicited Opinions the dignity of an engraved, almost official message while making it impossible to dismiss the line as a mere outburst then forcing the thought to be taken seriously.
