Artist Statement:
This current work focuses on the interplay humans have with the environment and the complex industries we create to help, heal, exploit and destroy one another. It explores various natural habitats with pharmaceuticals derived from these environments synthetically which are ultimately used to create opioids. Each animal and plant carries its own symbolism, and each painting has a reference to the Sackler family, who has made their fortune off of opioids, specifically Oxycontin. The opioid epidemic has taken the lives of over 750,000 people since 1999 (Center for Disease Control, https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/index.html).
The work aims to show both the beauty and the ugliness of the natural world and our interaction with it; mirroring the strange perspectives, pharmaceutical waste and unusual adaptations of both humans and the natural world to coexist, as climate change effects all of us.
