What viewers should be able to see in my artwork revolves around the concepts of the sublime and of nature in general. I am inspired by wildlife and encountering new birds on trips and am curious about the idea of nature in my work. For example, a painting that was done for an art history class in Baroque, depicts a robin on a branch, which is supposed to represent humility and how humans can look to nature as something of reverence. In terms of sublime, I create artwork about monsters and use compositions with unsettling conceptual themes or aesthetics. As far as a specific medium goes, I work mostly with oil paint on canvas.
My work Inner Demons was a response to The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya. It emulates the sublime and the idea that certain thoughts, or lack of, can create personal monsters within. Another work like this is a painting that incorporates the use of complex color schemes by having intense red and green artificial light with clashing same colored objects. The colors in the composition are what convey the idea of the sublime due to the eerie nature that is typically associated with red and green.
Some of the paintings made more recently have been utilizing the sublime in nature by using the theme of predator and prey. One of these works in particular, depicts a display where 2-D painted versions of origami birds are placed in a naturalistic setting. Some of the prey birds are seen floating in the water, while others are hanging by strings to mimic flight. Meanwhile, a naturalistic representation of a hawk is in the process of swooping down to tear apart one of the inanimate birds in the water. By using the theme of “survival of the fittest” in my artwork, it bridges the gap between horror and nature to create the sublime, a more complex theme.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/1050/thumbnail.jp
