Evil Ducky and the Fountain of Doom

Miklos Legrady

May 2008

Miklos Legrady started his photo-based project, Evil Ducky, in 2005 when he saw a variant of the popular yellow rubber duck toy in a store on Queen Street in Toronto: the devil duck.

Once purchased, devil duck became Evil Ducky and the film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom led to the final project title: Evil Ducky and the Fountain of Doom.

Evil Ducky, the actor, anti-hero and protagonist is expecting trouble. Emerging as a hybrid between cartoon character, ad buster and political commentator, this colourful duck moves through a world of political, social, cultural intrigue, trends and events.

Legrady works with a variety of media and a wide range of subjects–political, ecological, personal–from the viewpoint that the quality of daily experience itself is the core standard in judging what we do. He often combines billboard and poster styles with academic seriousness, cool visuals and classical technique; clarity and chaos; pop and politics; fear, love and passion. For the Evil Ducky project he employs directorial photography, remapped by a strategy of disturbance and restatement, personal iconography and urban narrative.

Willing to identify with Evil Ducky, the viewer will enter a reflection or mirror of daily life. Legrady embraces fun as a serious issue in contemporary art. The humour is in a personal interpretation, in reading the context and text within the image: how what we see is altered by what we’re told about it. Created by a mischievous yet playful satirist, Evil Ducky’s world is rich with the foibles of humankind, society and what we choose to call civilization.

Like the Energizer Bunny, Evil Ducky keeps going and going on the treadmill of life. Laugh and think about what it is to be human.

Born in Hungary and brought up in Montreal, Legrady has a Bachelor degree in Science and an MFA in Photography and Media Studies. He teaches digital art at the Toronto School of Art. His work has been shown in many group and solo exhibitions nationally and internationally and is collected privately and institutionally.