ARTIST STATEMENT

In the paintings I create, I want to show Wisconsin wildlife in their natural habitat. My desire is to generate painterly imagery that informs my audience and myself. I believe that society today is often disconnected with wildlife and should have an adequate understanding of the wildlife around them. Aldo Leopold, acknowledged to be the father of wildlife conservation, created the idea of the “land ethic” which meant that people need to have an ethical and caring relationship with wildlife. As Aldo Leopold once said in his book, Round River, “The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?” In response to what I have read and learned from Aldo Leopold and from my own personal experiences, I aim for my audience to view and learn about each specific wildlife species in my paintings.
My interest of wildlife began at a young age when my family would go on tent camping trips around the U.S. in the summers. Being introduced to wildlife as a youth and learning about it hands on, made me continue to still yearn to learn more about wildlife today. From those experiences, I am inspired to paint ‘type specimens’ (a biological example that centralizes general features of a particular taxon for identification purposes) of wildlife species in their natural environments.