And The Blooms Fell Print

On September 6, 2019, my show entitled “Stories of Love and Longing” opened at the JRB Gallery in Oklahoma City. The exhibition focuses on the proliferation of plastics in the ocean, global warming, and loss of habitat due to human recklessness. As a student of art history, I often draw on classical references as visual anchorage for my paintings. In this series, Botticelli’s “Primavera” inspires my images of women where the signs of spring can be invigorating yet deceiving: the blossoms curling from the lips of my strong readers represent hope but also hint at the grim drive for manifest destiny, the dangerous belief that human discovery always promises improvement. Early explorers were exhilarated by what F. Scott Fitzgerald called the “fresh, green breast of the new world,” but they brought disease and discontent along under the guise of enlightenment and spirituality. Mans current sense of manifest destiny results in the plundering of our planet.