Wind Elegy | 16" x 20" | watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on paper
Moon Over Madrones | 16" x 12" | watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and colored pencil on paper
Red Sun, Silent Sky (Hairy Woodpecker & Acorn Woodpecker) | 8" x 10" | watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on paper
Sun Through Smoke | 14.75" x 11.25" | watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and colored pencil on paper
Red Sun, Silent Sky (Lewis’s Woodpecker) | 9" x 12" | watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil on paper
Embers
talon Gallery
portland, OR
november 2020
My solo show Embers opened alongside the group show Wilderness, which I co-curated with Antler Gallery.
This group of paintings studies the ecosystems that form around the Oregon White Oak tree in Willamette Valley. The biodiverse open oak habitat and many of the species that rely on it are in decline, both in my bioregion and throughout the country, for reasons varying from unfettered land development to fire suppression, which has been ongoing since settlers banned Indigenous burning practices. Without regular fires to eliminate encroaching woody plants and faster-growing trees, oak ecosystems convert to closed-canopy forests. Animals that are adapted to savanna and open woodland habitats, such as certain species of woodpecker, have been extirpated from the region.
This body of work came together as wildfires converged throughout Oregon, fueled by heavy winds, poor forest management, and climate-related drought. As the air became hazardous to breathe, ash covered my garden, a sickly yellow hue was cast on everything for days, and the sun glowed red when it was visible at all. As things I’d photographed for reference just weeks before were displaced or burned away.