It is in human nature to make art that imitates the people, places, and events around us. I think about a future where we have suffered some kind of environmental or pathological devastation. People will long to connect back to the natural world they remember. This body of work represents that nostalgic view of a symbolic landscape.

I imagine myself living in this altered physical world, substituting inanimate objects, both man-made and natural, for their now-defunct originals. Here, porcelain animals represent their real-life counterparts: blue tape, bottles, and lids become water; tennis balls are the sun, and so on. Painted from observation, these still lifes are both altars to and memorials for natural habitats I fear won’t exist in the future. I see these pieces as part forewarning and part homage, depending on which side of the catastrophe they are viewed from.