Description

“I have painted birds periodically throughout my life, mainly as a symbol for fragility, both personal and political. “Terrariums” began as a series depicting Passenger Pigeons, which are extinct. I’ve expanded the subject to include endangered birds, their eggs, and other natural elements from the Border of San Diego/Tijuana, where I live.

The forced-perspective boxes suggest architecture, coffins, and permeable borders, in which the natural elements are both trapped and preserved. I want to both hide, through camouflaged backgrounds, and decorate with flashy metallics. Formal qualities of abstraction, gridding, and figure/ground flipping, combined with political subjects dressed with decorative tropes, are important elements of all my work, which includes nudes, narrative interiors and portraiture.

California Least Terns are endangered, and at one point only 600 nesting pairs remained. They nest on the sand where beach goers and the military can crush the eggs.” – Stump