Fauna
Several years ago I had a lucid dream in which I came upon a white deer covered in writing I couldn’t decipher. The deer was serene, and the dream felt like an omen. I painted that image twice because it was so haunting to me. Several of the other animals in this group are covered with proverbs - many about nature - written in the native language of their origins.
As part of the natural world, humans recognize aspects of themselves mirrored in nature, though much of what we think we understand about nature is colored by our own projections onto it. Images from nature (animals in particular) creep into our dreams and well up from the subconscious, presenting themselves as mythic creatures bearing symbolic meaning. It is no wonder that animals play important symbolic functions in most religions, especially white animals. The paintings in this series explore this realm of animals as archetypes, chiefly through the lens of my own dreams and imaginative wanderings.