Category Archives: Art and Extinction of Species

Destruction (2023)

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Mixed media (acrylic, wood shavings, metal scrap, fence wire), 2023

Size: w 16″x h 12″ x h 1.5″ cradled birch panel

Part I of Triptych (I, II, III: Destruction, Extinction, Disintegration)

Destruction

Rubble, ash, splintered wood, stone dust, pulverized concrete. What remains after the bombing of cities and catastrophe of earthquakes.

The following two poems will probably never see publication, so I put them out here (written in the last few weeks).

Gods of Peace and War

We are the gods of grace

We come from away and far

To show you a safe place

To light your way with stars

We are the gods of war

We travel now in space

To show you death and fear

We look into your face

We are the gods of peace

We are the gods that are

War Is Here

War is here; we’ve been attacked

Death will come for thee and me

As it has for saints and fools.

Before that, time will crease our hearts

And fear will corrugate our souls.

Fire Escape

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Acrylic, ink, pastel on canvas (2024)

Size: w 20″ x h 40″ x d 1.5″

After having posted several “in progress”‘ images of this painting, I announced with great fanfare back in May that it was finally finished. It was not.

Ollie in Gaza

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Acrylic, ink, re-harvested PETE plastic on linen (2024)

This piece is now finished. It will be exhibited in Kingston for the month of November (Window Gallery) as part of the OKWA (Organization of Kingston Women Artists) annual show. Here is the statement I wrote in response to the show’s theme, Change:

“Ollie the orangutan was photographed in 1988 for a book about endangered species.  In my painting he is bewildered, palms up in despair, bearing witness to the death and destruction in Gaza over the past year.  This artwork itself has seen much change, originally a dense network of red dots but layer by layer overlaid with paint and buried in plastic rubble, symbolizing the tens of thousands of individual lives lost.  If he is still alive, Ollie is 42 years old.  I show him fading from our view just as these magnificent creatures are vanishing from the world, approaching extinction.”

Ollie in Gaza (Work in Progress)

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Acrylic and ink on canvas (2024)

Size: w 16 ” x h 20″ x d 1″

Ollie the orangutan was photographed by James Balog at Marine World Africa in California in 1988. In captivity, an orangutan can sometimes live into their late 50s. If he is still alive, Ollie is 42 years old.

Holding My Broken Heart Aloft

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Water soluble crayon/pencil and graphite on paper (1990)

Size: w 13″ x h 25″

This is what I wrote in 1990 about this piece:

Like the photographer James Balog who photographed the 15-month-old Atlantic green turtle on its back, I too am “continually mesmerized by this image of delicate sensibility.” Balog tells us in his new book, Survivors: A New Vision of Endangered Wildlife, that the species is on the verge of extinction following systematic exploitation for meat, eggs, and oil. This picture is about vulnerability, and also about the awareness of incalculable suffering which surrounds and drowns each of us like a heavy sea. The turtle yearns to extend herself, to reach beyond her own separateness. The Scythian mirror, a relic from the sixth century BC, is symbolic of her vain, broken effort.

Passing: Fire Escape

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Acrylic, ink, pastel on canvas (2024)

Size: w 20″ x h 40″ x d 1.5″

Now finished — Ta-da!

Three of my paintings (Nereids in the Garden of Hippocampus, Leaving Eden, and Dragonfly Dance) are on exhibit at the Etobicoke Civic Centre this month through to June 6 as part of The Art of Regret, a group show of work by the Organization of Kingston Women Artists. Here is the link to the Civic Centre (scroll to click on Gallery Exhibitions and the image shown is of my piece, Leaving Eden).

Passing: Fire Escape (Detail of Work in Progress)

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Yet another detail (see last two posts), showing a bit more this time. Not finished yet.

This painting began with the idea of red flames, figures descending stairwells and climbing escape ladders while the earth’s treasure, all we cherish in this world, is vanishing, gone forever out the window. It is not so red anymore, but the fire and fear of red reach back to a painting I originally posted in February last year, Nereids Enter the Burning Forest.

Here is the statement I wrote recently for that painting:

This painting is about bravery in the face of insurmountable odds.  The two figures run into a burning forest carrying balls of water, balloons.  They do this rather than step back, look away, leave the job to others.  With their action they counter the hopelessness we on the sidelines feel in these times of crisis.  As I write this, the world mourns in anger the seemingly targeted deaths of seven humanitarian aid workers in Gaza.

RED

Red for me means love and joy
But that is not the subject here.

Fire and Fear

This red is a line and a light:
Don’t cross, it taunts;
Don’t move, it mocks.

This red threatens and cons.
Courage, it cries!
Promising passion,
It pleads sacrifice.

This red is infernal
Gathering heat as it roils and rolls,
It bleeds its case.
It wants your life.