Halcyon Collection

The central theme driving my work recently is the concept of halcyon. Halcyon is defined by Merriam Webster as a period of time “characterized by happiness, great success, and prosperity”. It represents an idealized past. Since most of my body of work and its inspiration stems from past experiences, past photos I’ve taken, past locations, and childhood influences, the idea has really focused my artistic practice, clicking into place what so much of my artistic practice has been about for years; that drive to get myself back into a past place through art. Being that a taxidermized specimen inspired my initial dive into the concept, the European Sparrowhawk has become ingrained in my personal mythology as a symbol for halcyon. This hawk has been a reappearing subject in my recent work inspired by a desire to revive its halcyon days. I’ve been so fascinated by the idea of taking this poorly taxidermized, 100-year-old, practically skeleton of a specimen, and thinking about how it must have lived 100 years ago. I imagine how it lived, how it hunted, how much less polluted of a world it lived in, and bring it into the present all in contrast with its current decrepit state. Through my prints and paintings, I construct spaces where memory, mythology, and ecological consciousness intersect. My work does not necessarily seek to restore the past, but to question, why we long for it, and just what that longing reveals about our relationship to the natural world.