As someone who has been long interested in taxidermy and museum collections, having the opportunity to do volunteer work in a museum for the past 2 1/2 years has truly been a blessing and one of the better parts of my life. When I found out that a group of artists--all volunteers and employees--were getting together to put on a gallery show, I knew I needed to be involved. So I put together this piece as an homage to my work there.
"Artifact", done entirely digitally, was a pretty huge undertaking for me--the final print of this work measures 3 feet wide and 2 feet tall, and carries quite the presence in person. It's enjoyable to watch people react to the artwork, the way they stand far away and then creep in closer, sometimes stopping less than a foot away to examine an area in detail.
And there's a lot of detail--pictured above, a specimen of butterflies on a stick, which many people viewed as leaves until noticing up close that they weren't. These butterflies depend on such camouflage in life to blend in, but in the image, it's a kind of secret for those who want to look close.
Specimens featured range from those I have interacted with personally, to specimens from museum displays where I volunteer and at other museums.
The original statement shown in the gallery:
I have always found something interesting in the old-fashioned. As an artist, I often fall back on traditional influences in terms of style and content, but strive to examine a historical aesthetic without repeating works that have already been done. I love to combine the echoes of old works with contemporary media, and at a passing glance, my work could resemble traditionally printed works, though they are all produced digitally. One particular element of digital work that I love to take advantage of is the ability to edit far longer than in traditional print media. Where an etched plate may be difficult to make changes on indefinitely, a digital work can be detailed to a degree that demands investigation. My work is intricate and leaves little empty space, a simple glance is not enough to take in everything in an image. For “Artifact”, I draw on the love of taxidermy and specimen collections that brought me to the Field Museum in the first place, when one of the first questions out of my mouth was when I would learn to skin. Over the years that I’ve been here, my love and my personal collection of specimens have only grown, inspiring at long last an homage to something that has become such a big part of my life.
3' x 2' prints are available, contact if interested.
