Scarabeo Cervo is a wall-mounted sculptural object that reimagines the deer trophy as a hybrid creature between stag, beetle, armor,... Read More
Scarabeo Cervo is a wall-mounted sculptural object that reimagines the deer trophy as a hybrid creature between stag, beetle, armor, and ritual emblem. The work begins with the recognizable structure of a deer skull and antlers, yet its surface treatment and presentation shift the object away from traditional trophy culture. Through matte black and bronze-toned elements, the form becomes less naturalistic and more symbolic, almost insectoid.
The transformation is based on a visual double reading. Antlers, normally associated with nobility, hunting, masculinity, and forest mythology, begin to resemble the mandibles or armored extensions of a stag beetle. The familiar trophy silhouette mutates into something stranger and more ancient. Nature appears not as a fixed category, but as a field of echoes, projections, and cultural interpretations.
The title Scarabeo Cervo, “deer beetle”, points directly to this hybrid identity. It names a creature that is not simply one thing or another. The work asks how easily human perception reorganizes animal forms into symbols, trophies, ornaments, or myths. By turning the deer into an insect-like emblem, the piece loosens the authority of the hunting trophy and opens it toward metamorphosis, ambiguity, and sculptural imagination.
