Bathen 

Sue Coe's drawing presents the viewer with a stark image: hens confined in a battery cage, a scene of industrial confinement, and brutal reality. The cage itself, a grid of wire, becomes a powerful symbol. It’s a recurring motif throughout history, reappearing as prison bars, or even the structured confines of religious or societal expectations. Think of the gilded cage of a Renaissance portrait, where wealth and status paradoxically imprison the soul. The act of pecking out the eyes carries potent symbolism. The loss of sight – blindness – is a motif that runs through Sophocles' Oedipus, where self-inflicted blindness signifies a painful yet profound insight. Here, in Coe's work, it speaks to the horrors of factory farming, but also a more universal, timeless theme of cruelty, where suffering becomes a spectacle and a means of survival. Such images tap into our collective memory, evoking a visceral response, and stirring up subconscious anxieties about control, confinement, and the very nature of empathy. The cycle of violence, the cyclical recurrence of such imagery throughout history – it’s a grim reminder of the darker aspects of human nature.