In 2016 I began a small series of paintings called “Pinnacles,” narrow, 24 x 6” compositions featuring hummingbirds atop spindly, abstract plinths leafed in gold. Concurrent with the pinnacles, I painted a small series called “Ornaments,” which focused on birds perched atop or hanging from baubles suggestive of holiday ornaments. These were among the first pieces where I used gold leaf to echo the decorative value of the subject, elevate its perceived importance, or both. In the context of the first “Pinnacle” pieces, the hummingbirds perched like precious stones in a high setting. Later I would use gold leaf and very historically evocative compositions to imbue animal subjects with an overt sense of religiosity, presenting them as objects of reverence, even worship, as icons in the church of nature.

For decades my work has championed animal and bird subjects that are common or well known, recontextualizing them in a non-objective space in order to force viewers to see a subject they might otherwise pass by unnoticed in a new and celebratory light. I’ve done that in my Totem paintings, Pattern Paintings, Pinnacles, Animal Icons, and now with this series “Desert Pinnacles.” I chose six iconic Sonoran Desert animals and presented them atop pedestals leafed in either 12KT white gold or 23 KT yellow gold. Wildlife art is still given the cold shoulder by most of the academic art establishment, an utterly absurd attitude in light of the fact that some of the very first examples of art in all of recorded history are animals scrawled on the walls of caves. Now, with the natural world in increasing peril, wildlife as a subject for art is more relevant than ever before, and yet this attitude still prevails in certain circles. Elevating animals by claiming them to be a worthy subject for truly fine art still feels like a renegade act, and these paintings proclaim loudly and without apology that wildlife belongs, quite literally, on a pedestal.