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United States
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16 x 12 in ($95)
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Black Canvas
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White ($135)
Artist Recognition
Artist featured in a collection
The lavender-blue volcano featured in this piece is Mt. Mikeno, a dormant volcano located in Africa’s Democratic Republic of the Congo. Carl Akeley, a taxidermist for the American Museum of Natural History during the early 20th century, was repeatedly drawn back to this site to kill, collect and display the critically endangered mountain gorillas that inhabit its slopes. The gorillas within the forest additionally inspired him to urge King Albert I of Belgium to create Albert National Park in 1925, which later became Virunga National Park. Akeley returned to this site several times as it had a perfect view of Mikeno, and used this view as the backdrop for his famous mountain gorilla diorama in the Hall of African Mammals at AMNH. While his vision of the gorilla diorama was eventually realized during the 1920s, the expeditions to Mikeno were extremely physically and emotionally taxing; Akeley even likened shooting the gorillas to murdering a human, especially when collecting the baby gorilla for his diorama. During his final expedition in 1926, he succumbed to what may have been Ebola while camped at this exact site. He was buried in a shallow grave here, where his bones have been excavated by various forest animals and are now likely palmed by the gorillas themselves. Today, the forest continues to be a beautiful but deadly battleground, especially in terms of conservation biology and the rights of indigenous peoples. This piece explores the paradoxical drives to kill but conserve and to save the animals but not the indigenous people of Africa, and the colonialist constructs behind this thinking are still inherent in conservation biology and museums today. Please see below for a more generalized description of my work. ----------------------*----------------------- My paintings are a taphonomic study of the “American Dream” and the Western concept of progress, especially scientific and societal progress. I use an American Art Deco aesthetic, images of the habitat dioramas in the Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), and my own historic and scientific research and personal experience in order to entrench the viewer in nostalgia while critically deconstructing the assumptions and delusions that are crucial to these ideas. These include but are not limited to colonialism, sexism, ethical questions concerning museums, and the limitations of science. The early 20th century African dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History are presented in my paintings as a paradoxically artificial, idealized world meant to scientifically represent reality. I am deeply intrigued by the myriad of paradoxes they present: stunningly beautiful scenes made from toxic and decaying animal skins, scientifically accurate exhibits born of non-scientific methods, and the inherent killing and display of the very animals that the dioramas aimed to preserve and protect through promotion of conservation. The dioramas themselves are childhood images for me as I was born in New York City and essentially grew up in AMNH, going in to work with my mother and father in the Mammalogy Department. I have also worked as a preparator and diorama painter in the Exhibition Department at AMNH, during which I learned traditional diorama creation techniques from seasoned preparators, and am now a Ph.D. student who conducts scientific research at AMNH while continuing to create fine art. Each of my paintings involves a combination of the traditional AMNH diorama process from the Edwardian/Art Deco era with my own aesthetic choices and techniques. The essential process of each painting involves creating and transferring a detailed drawing, laying in a richly textured underpainting in mars red, painting in areas of light with an opaque lead white, and in some cases glazing thin layers of color over the entire image. Throughout the process I plaster miscellaneous notes, photos, and images onto the border of the image. The overall effect is one of several layers of paint and paper that appear to have decayed and tarnished over a longer length of time. Each painting forces the viewer to ask what is truly real and meaningful, and highlights the modern relevance of the dioramas themselves—especially as symbols of the glamorized, deteriorating ideal of the “American Dream.”
Print:Giclee on Canvas
Size:16 W x 12 H x 1.25 D in
Size with Frame:17.75 W x 13.75 H x 1.25 D in
Frame:White
Canvas Wrap:Black Canvas
Ready to Hang:Yes
Packaging:Ships in a Box
Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
Handling:Ships in a box. Art prints are packaged and shipped by our printing partner.
Ships From:Printing facility in California.
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United States
Grace is a visual artist and scientist who creates haunting, detail-intensive oil paintings and sculptures based on images from her childhood and her research in a broad range of fields. She is especially interested in paradoxes inherent in science, history, and beauty. Grace is currently earning her Ph.D. in Geology at the University of Texas at Austin. Her educational background is multidisciplinary and comprises degrees and experiences in evolutionary biology, anthropology, museum preparation, and forensic autopsy, but the visual arts have always remained its foundation since she was a little girl. Grace has received several grants and awards, most notably the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation for the Arts Grant. She has additionally been included in a number of exhibitions, including the Junior Scholarship Exhibition at the Salmagundi Club in New York City and the Young Contemporaries Exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art in Charleston, South Carolina.
Artist featured by Saatchi Art in a collection
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