Like a Rorschach inkblot, Hatton's work says 'animal'.

Disagree with our reviewers comments? Why not add to the debate and have your say ...

Andreana May Denmark WA Beautiful I would love to touch it. A permanent reminder of what us as humans do. Mark Douglas Melbourne I too think that it's great to be able to use the net to access something that's being spoken about. It makes it like interactive tv. It is hard though to listen to a talk while also reading about things. Les Harsant Healesville, Vic. 3777 Heard Beth Hatton only. Fascinating extension of radio, an innovative media mix that extends its range enormously. But would I rush to the internet again and again and again for future temptations? Not sure about that. I can return at will, at any time of course, to look and dwell at my leisure / pleasure. Great development that deserves further use and experimentation; by other programs also. Well done ABC.

'Tasmanian Tiger (Extinct and Endangered Species, Series Three)'
Woven Rug: kangaroo skin offcuts and wool
Size: 2m long x 1.5m wide

Beth Hatton - Annandale

Some species vanishing.

Others flourishing to plague proportions.

Learning to balance needs for commodities against their impact on the land.

All elements of society are interdependent.

We are inextricably linked to each other: just images and materials interweave in my rugs.

Review ...

Beth Hatton's 'Tasmanian Tiger' rug hangs on the wall like a strange warning.

This familiar animal shape - pegged out as if for tanning - has a strong graphic quality, especially with the characteristic 'Tiger' stripes now appearing on bottles of Cascade Beer helping to etch into our consciousness the likeness of this now extinct 'beast'.

Like the Dodo bird, the extinction of the Tasmania Tiger is legendary. In Hatton's artwork the 'Tiger' stripes are repeated by lines around it made as if by a giant human fingerprint: a fingerprint that symbolises human complicity in wiping out this animal in the 1930s.

Beth Hatton has been creating work about endangered species since 1994. Her first woven rugs of Tasmanian Tigers, wombats and quolls were made from wool. Her more recent work uses strips of kangaroo fur - an indigenous fibre - in order to balance the wool (an introduced fibre).

This artwork is both fragile and strong - with the kangaroo fur being downy like feathers, and standing out in relief. The wool is black, blue and red like strongly coloured socks - chosen by Hatton to represent the void left by a species long extinct.

Hatton's work can be touched because - as the artist says - rugs are hardy and made to be used. The skin of one kangaroo is only a tiny area on the rug, and Hatton says: "There are thousands of kangaroos in here."

Hatton wants to let the animals have a voice, and in doing so extend their life beyond death. Indeed, it is this complexity of thought in her work that lends strength to its visual attractiveness.

Yet her rug is more than a tribute to an extinct Australian animal - as important as this theme is. Her thinking on this subject has gone beyond merely regretting or bemoaning colonial mistreatment of the land and its inhabitants.

The method of the work reflects this theme. The rug is woven on a loom using a shaft-shifting technique, which means that the image is reversed on either side.

The fact that there is no right or wrong side to the fabric emphasizes the duality of the issues involved: there are two sides to every question, two ways of looking at things.

"Kangaroos took to settlement by proliferating, but unless they are killed their numbers get out of control," Hatton explains.

"The story of the Tasmanian Tiger is the exact opposite. So together, the tiger and the 'roo tell the whole story of the impact of non-Aboriginal settlement in Australia," Hatton concludes.

I felt as if I knew this artwork before I saw it. The mottled or patterned skins of animals have a strong, primitive resonance within the human psyche. Like a Rorschach inkblot, Hatton's work says 'animal'.

In this response to the animal there is a strong element of respect and appreciation. Gratitude for a potential blanket, or perhaps a meal.

Stephanie Radok

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