ARTIST STATEMENT

Using traditional oil painting methods, I create detailed and realistic animal portraits. It is important for me to depict each of my animal subjects as a distinct individual with their own life and personality. Animals are sentient beings with lives full of adventure, danger, love, and loss - not all that different from us. But when we see a wild animal in nature, we are catching just a tiny glimpse of that animal’s life, and it can become easy for us to overlook the animal’s individuality. We can quickly default to thinking about them as a feature within a landscape, or as an avatar for all members of that species. I paint portraits of animals to remind people of their depth and complexity.

My oil paintings portray each animal subject at approximately life size.  This scale allows the viewer to experience my wild animal subjects at a size and closeness that is often impossible in a natural environment. By presenting my animal subjects in this context, viewers can focus on the subtle nuances in facial expression and proportion that become pivotal to showing personality and individuality. 

Many of my portraits focus specifically on large carnivore species of North America such as wolves, mountain lions, and bears. These animals are pivotal to the health of their ecosystems, as their presence manages both the population size and the behavior of prey species. But predator species are often undervalued and frequently still portrayed [through the stigmatized lens of bygone eras] with the stigma of bygone eras; represented as indiscriminate killers whose populations need to be managed by humans. But nature proves that these apex predators manage their own numbers and are essential to the ecological balance of their environments.

Most of my paintings depict the animal’s head, neck, and shoulders; the same format traditionally reserved for human portraits. By presenting my animal subjects in this format, the human viewer can reflect upon the animal subject in a context that highlights the animal’s personality. Hopefully this reflection will allow people to give these historically misunderstood animals the consideration and empathy they deserve.