Art by Sue Coe
These pig paintings and sketches are by the renowned artist Sue Coe, “Graphic Witness”. She has written many articles and books, including Dead Meat and Sheep of Fools. Her paintings are housed by art museums, institutes, libraries, foundations, and universities internationally. Sue says, “My aim is to use art to change the world, not reflect it.” Sue Coe grew up in Detroit in a neighbourhood with a pig slaughterhouse.
In the artworks below she recounts the grief she felt when she and her mother saw an escaped pig recaptured and, in the next one, she and her sister witness the vicious use of electric prods to unload pigs from trucks.
My mother and I watch a pig escape the slaughterhouse.
“My Sister and I, outside a pig slaughterhouse in Detroit, the dead pigs were thrown to the side of the road. They were being electrocuted in the eyes, to get them out of the truck.”
Please take a moment to consider this medieval brutality and make the decision to fight against it with Toronto Pig Save and other animal rights organizations so we can end animal agriculture.
The next set of 11 pig paintings and sketches provide a chronology of the treatment of pigs from World War I to the abuses in industrial factory farms and slaughterhouses. The last print provides some repose, leading us to a fully vegan way of living with our fellow creatures at animal sanctuaries.
WWI pigs. Outside a brothel in occupied Europe.
“Pigs eaten alive by maggots. In the sow gestation crates, they cannot turn around or move, imprisoned for their entire short lives, eaten by maggots.”
Lete Concentration Camp. This is a modern pig farm, built on the site of a concentration camp, for the Romany peoples, in the town of Lete, Czech Republic.
Gassing hogs, six at a time, instead of one at a time, more profitable for the industry.
Tail docking. Sketch by Sue Coe.
Ear notching. Sketch by Sue Coe.
Injecting Piglet. Sketch by Sue Coe.
Teeth cutting. Sketch by Sue Coe.
Factory pharm, the animals went insane. By Sue Coe.
The next drawings and paintings by Sue Coe are available as prints on her website Graphic Witness. These images graphically explore the scale and extent of injustices and exploitation faced by farm animals and end with a Dickensian death bed scene in which “modern man [is] haunted by the ghosts of his meat.”
“Triumph” by Sue Coe
“Turnabout” by Sue Coe
“Picnic” by Sue Coe
“Lawyer” by Sue Coe
Man followed by the ghosts of his meat.
