Floyd Tunson - "Universal Bunny"

The Universal Bunny sculpture is one of several pieces in my Universal Bunny series, which includes work in painting and mixed media. 

This piece refers to pejoratives used to describe Black people, terms like “jungle bunny,” “coon,’’ and more. It’s the scale it is because the issue it addresses is a big issue of bigotry around the world: It’s an issue larger than any single life.

The sculpture is a tragi-comic rendering because sometimes you have to laugh at tragic events because if you don’t, the cruelty and absurdity of it all will drive you mad. Also, sharing laughter with other viewers in a museum can often lead to productive conservations about all kinds of serious subjects.

The main challenge of creating this sculpture was to design it for simplicity.