ANIMAL HEADS

These drawings are from a series of over three hundred pen and ink drawings of birds, bats and other animals on rag paper. Iʼve drawn the head of each creature alone on a large field of brown paper. On occasion, two or more heads appear on a page in order to present a relationship. I work from photographs in books that cover such topics as raising chickens as pets, breeding birds of prey and field guides.

With each drawing, I include the following information: the common and/or latin name of each creature, the exact day the work was executed and, in most cases, a piece of text from the book from which the original image came. The names are included to satisfy the factually curious. The text is a more complex addition. It sometimes provides real information about the animal; more often, the text is so removed from its original context that it can only be read metaphorically. For example the text, “The weight of a brooding mother could crush them.” refers quite literally to the deterioration of the strength of a peregrine falconʼs eggshell due to DDT in the environment. Alternately, the text can be read to reflect on a possible relationship between a mother and their child.

This series functions variously as an idiosyncratic archive of the animal kingdom and also as a kind of journal of my moods. I have focused primarily on the underdogs of the animal world: rodents, rabbits and bats. At times, the technical challenge of drawing some of the loftier animals led me to draw cheetahs, bears and bison. With each animal, I sought to find in its face some reflection the human condition deliberately leading the viewer to anthropomorphize the subject. Each creature gazes out of the page at the viewer and must be addressed accordingly, like another human seeking eye contact. We can see aspects of ourselves reflected in their eyes and faces, yet what sits behind the animalʼs gaze? Fear, hunger, curiosity, indifference? In our great curiosity as humans, we have learned to decipher the meaning behind some animalsʼ looks and gestures yet, for all that we know, there is even more that we imagine. Various animals have throughout time been said to be heartless, barbaric, evil incarnate, mystical, magical, good, bad and ugly. It is this human trait that insists on the assignation of qualities to creatures that arouses my own curiosity. I am fascinated by the human need to relate, to find similarities, to try to share something with these unknowable animals.