Artist Statement for Predator and Pray, a working title

In this new body of work I explore the intersections of heteropatriarchy and societal/environmental destruction. I refer to 19th c. politics, industry and art to illuminate the recurrence of political and cultural tumult.

The collaged backgrounds are layered with religious text, images and text of war including Revolutionary War and Civil War etchings and song, scraps of wall paper and gift wrappings, pages from children’s books and more. Chinese blue and white pottery, Qinghua, is referenced as wallpaper chasing a trapped fox, in American Red Fox. In White American Wolf and Common American Wild-cat each creature emerges from 19th c. American wallpaper design. The words from Dante’s Divine Comedia, in particular the words from Purgatoria, Canto V, “Each one of us relies on your good will” and images of Greek mythological icons provide further historical reference, reminding us that this struggle is ancient, pervasive and inscrutable.

The painted images reference the illustrations of JJ Audubon in particular, in addition to other “scientific” drawings from the 17th thru 19th c. Audubon is under new scrutiny as we struggle with his legacy as an anti abolitionist and other titans and myth makers of the 19th c., a century of comparative cultural shifts as these first decades of the 21st. I reimagine the work of Maria Sibylla Merian and illustrations from The Histoire Naturelle, relocating them within a 21st c narrative. Each image is in some way disappearing from the environment possibly due to environmental destruction such as The American Flamingo or over hunting and shrinking habitat such as White American Wolf, or references to decay such as Blofly, Carrion Insect, the first on the scene of decaying flesh. As a middle aged woman, I recognize dis-appearance.

This work was inspired by genealogical research into my family’s Civil War participation and the loss of a dear friend and artist who was, due to her fear of the virus, vulnerable to Covid disinformation and succumbed to Covid in January 2022. A predators’ nature is to hunt, to feed, but in the case of humans, left to our own devices and without “regulation”, be it ethical or political, we will ultimately be the cause of our own demise.