Predator and Pray, a working title

In this new body of work I explore the intersections of heteropatriarchy and societal/environmental destruction through the deep connective veins that bind the tumultuous beginning of this century with the 19th. 

The collaged backgrounds are layered with images and text of war such as Revolutionary War and Civil War etchings and song, religious text, 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.

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Purgatoria, Canto V, “Each one of us relies on your good will” and images of Greek mythological icons provide further historical reference, reminding us that this struggle is ancient, pervasive and inscrutable that we are connected to our past as we vehemently struggle to escape it. 

The painted images reference the illustrations of JJ Audubon in particular, in addition to other “scientific” drawings from the 19th c, a century of comparative cultural shifts as these first decades of the 21st.

Each subject 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 (not included), the first on the scene of decaying flesh. As a middle-aged woman, I recognize dis-appearance.

This work was inspired by 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 left to it’s own devices will the predator ultimately be the cause of his own demise?