Statement

My work documents and highlights the lives of other animals, examining the complex and significant ways in which we are bound and entangled together.

Animals have figured prominently in images painted on the walls of ancient caves by our human ancestors. From this point onward, they have been visual themes for human societies worldwide. Our representations archive our thoughts and unearth a variety of frameworks that expose our shifting relations, observations, stories, and beliefs about their lives and who we think they are. 

Through research-driven, conceptually rooted works ranging from drawings to paintings, soft sculptures, and land-based art projects, I seek to understand and honour the lives of the other animals I encounter. We live in a multispecies world of interdependence—our pasts, presents, and futures are joint. I wonder what kinds of worldly response, and the aesthetics of that response, will respect, support, and sustain our earthly survival.

ME: Why am I alive?

OLD WOMAN: Because everything else is.

ME: No. I mean the purpose.

OLD WOMAN: That is the purpose. To learn about your relatives.

ME: My family?

OLD WOMAN: Yes. The moon, stars, rocks, trees, plants, water, insects, birds, mammals. Your whole family. Learn about that relationship. How you’re moving through time and space together. That’s why your alive.

Richard Wagamese - Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations