SKULL PAINTINGS

The content of these paintings--the animal skull--was found fortuitously, but the skulls grabbed me, and I have been in an inquiry ever since. I have been going down a rabbit hole of dialogue between me and the skulls. They nudged me to start learning about paleontology, mass extinctions and now I am deep into contemplation of climate change, biodiversity loss and the many crises caused by ecological overshoot. As the inquiry has deepened, the paintings have become concomitantly more colorful, textured, and raw. Our age of destruction carries inherent contradictions and conundrums on an individual and spiritual level. The mind can experience joy, love, and transcendence while simultaneously harboring gut wrenching knowledge and while perpetrating unseen destruction. Can mass extinction really be understood by the intellect or the heart? We are impermanent, joyful, body-minds, and our own mortality is a microcosm of our current age’s existential crisis.