The Passenger Pigeon is reimagined from JJ Audubon’s original using the translucence of watercolor and colored pencil to represent the unpredictability and volatility of climate change. It's extinction is an example of the exploitative and avaricious system of capitalism and the effect on Nature. In the epic poem, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XI Dante describes art as "grandchild to God", comparing art following Nature as "a pupil follows a master". Here he is discussing an ethical life and considers art as industry and usury as an offense to the Divine. This description is written in the background of the painting, adding history as texture as well as context.