STATEMENT OF WORK

“Look about you at the little things that run the Earth.” -E.O. Wilson, Half-Earth

I have been documenting and depicting the animals I encounter for the past eleven years, exclusively painting with an airbrush, a tool developed for speed and glamour which I’ve repurposed to create soft, vulnerable forms that dissolve at close range and cohere as you step away. I relish the indiscernible boundaries between shapes, and the magic of creating a painting without ever touching its surface.

The backbone of my life is a daily painting practice. Every day I make a small painting of a creature I see: a butterfly sunbathing in the August heat, a pigeon searching for morsels on a harsh March morning. This meditative labor serves as a historical record and as a reminder that I, too, lived on this day.

Time may remain unthinkably vast but I sink into its tedious and banal details. These moments in time become circles on the calendar, calendars in themselves. The weather changes the subjects of the paintings; travel, color and interest come and go with the seasons. During the warm summer months, I’m hyper-focused on pollinators like moths and bees with their myriad of beautiful colors and patterns, whereas in the winter months I’m lucky to see any other creatures besides a couple of Mourning doves nestling together for warmth.

I neither want to live like those who came before me with desires to conquer and consume, nor to numb myself through distraction to the wonder of the world. I’ve crafted this practice of noticing, naming, and recording the moments occurring around me to elevate them to their deserved level of significance. As I paint them, the edges between us become foggy, wrapping around one another in warm embrace.