Joel-Peter Witkins

Joel-Peter Witkins uses many themes such as death, corpse and people cast as outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals and physically deformed people. Witkins explains that his inspirations and influences came to him when a violent car crash accident happened out side his home when he was younger, he encountered the  scene of three cars smashed together, all of which had families in. As he started at this horrific scene on the curb outside his home he claims 'I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where i stood. It was a head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it - but before i could touch it someone carried me away.' From this i think that Witkins may have developed his interest in corpse and corpse parts, as that it would have been a big event in life. Joel-Peter must have developed his ideas and thoughts from a young age of what he really took an interest in, for someone to be so engaged in such passionate interest in the lives of the 'abnormal' and 'grotesque' makes you stop and think.