Excerpt From the Exhibition Catalog for the traveling show in
Columbia, South America, 1987
"...The viewer has to shift gears when looking at the images of "Road Kills". A sense of humor and the obviousness of the technique prevent us from reacting with real horror to the "monster" images. At first these images may startle us, but later, they challenge us to figure out how they were made. Dead animals, along the side of the road, vernacularly called "Road Kills", are a common sight in the United States, a culture obsessed with the automobile and with speed. Ours is also a culture which does not often take the time to ponder the effect of the path it forges. In Paternite's "Road Kill" photographs, art does not serve beauty.
Paternite has been intrigued with animals since childhood, beginning with a Field Guide to Mammals at age 5 and a course in taxidermy at age 14. He has been photographing road kills since 1973 and continues to this day. This obsession is also incorporated into sculptures he makes out of various animal parts found along the road or ordered from taxidermy supply houses.
His ability to confront these dead animals stems from a genuine curiosity about them and from a self-imposed aesthetic distance. He may have been partially desensitized to the gore by a three month stint as assistant to a pathologist in 1976. Paternite states that "there is strong imagery going on along the side of the road", "and that" "ugly things can be just as intriguing as beautiful things". Ironically, the photographer's black-and-white photography emphasizes beauty in nature, following in the straight landscape tradition. Paternite feels he needs one to balance the other...."
Penny Rakoff, Associate Professor of Art
The University of Akron, Akron, Ohio 1987
