I can't believe so-called "artist" Simon Ward was named "best artist" by the Re:creation Awards panel.

The beginning of the article says people might think they had stumbled across an animal house of horrors when first glimpsing the loathsome refrigerated stock of animal corpses he kept in his home.

That is exactly how I feel now and no amount of superficial hoopla that surrounds Ward from the "art establishment" can make me feel any different.

As a life-long animal lover and campaigner for respect and kindness towards all animal species, I am appalled anyone could take the obviously tragic event of an animal's demise (through violence, no less) and try to make a name and money for himself.

It is utterly disgusting and a grievous commentary on the supposedly civilised human species that society would award this type of ghoulish voyeurism.

It's like people straining to see the blood and gore of roadside accident victims on the highways.

It takes humans to turn violence and death into a moneymaking venture and all too often innocent animals are its victims.

What do you say about the young men who find excitement and self-expression in this kind of thing?

Ward claims it is about desensitising people and seeing how far he could push himself.

Does that mean he will seek further and even more horrendous examples of death, maybe photographing a poor cow who has just been slaughtered, an animal eviscerated through vivisection?

Perhaps he will take it upon himself to provide future subjects by deliberately maiming and killing animals himself and then passing it off as road-kill he picked up.

-Erin M Brown, Bedford, Texas, US