the culminating work in the series
of mixed media reverse paintings
on mirrored glass dedicated
to j.m.w. turner.

three examples from a small group
of mixed media paintings produced
in consideration of and solidarity
with the planet's rapidly declining
populations of plant pollinators.

i used a shallow, diagrammatic
visual strategy to provide a playful yet
business-like context for constructing
metaphors for existential peril and
the urgent dynamics of industry.

bees—represented here
by hardened blobs of magnetite—
were inserted into shallow holes
drilled into painted wood panels
treated with copper oxide
(a fungicide and preservative)
to suggest the specific, twinned
biological imperatives of pollination
and pollinators and the rational
and irrational fears and anxieties
we humans commonly associate
with having lost one's way.