extinctions

In 2011 I returned to the painting studio, invited by Gallery Route One to create an exhibit based on my interest in California’s endangered/threatened floristic habitats. With the help of the California Native Plant Society and National Park Service, I located endangered plants in coastal, Sierra Nevada, and Central Valley regions and painted them plein air. Those I could not visit I painted from photographs, and I quickly realised that vestiges of many endangered wildflowers exist in only a single photograph reproduced infinitely in digital space. To note the fragility of this “presence” I simplified internet images to 16 or 24 pixels and painted ghost portraits. This gallery is a sampling of the painting series, many now in private collections.