Imaginary Animals

The hybrid animals that together comprise my senior comprehensive exercise resulted from studies in natural history museums and photographs, and extrapolation from that to realize visions of animals that are physically impossible, yet which look as if they could be true. In these paintings I can twist reality to meet my own ends, with creatures pulled from imagination, dreams, and books. The project is an exploration of the strange sorts of juxtapositions that occur in dreams, the fantastic made real, yet not seeming strange at all: the most unnatural sight, seen in a dream, seems perfectly natural. Objects and creatures in the physical world take on particular forms for logical reasons, and the stories of the evolutions of different animal features are incredible. Each of my imaginary creatures is shown alongside a description of its habits and habitat, a thought exercise that situates the creatures as part of an almost-possible world, where natural history museums hang illustrative Art on their walls. The paintings are in a variety of different compositional styles to give the impression that the works are from one world, but different artists and time periods. Art is not separate from science, literature, childhood, world creation, any part of life. One essential function of art is that it creates a space to imagine the illogical and even impossible. These creatures should have a sense of solidity, they should look real and yet other than careful studies of nature. Each animal has a unique background, both visual and verbal, to stand against. Fantasy must be constructed with a basis in reality, while asking the question, what if the laws of nature were not as they are? Fantasy deals with impossibilities and dreams, with a creative process unmoored from laws of possibility, yet often originating from the known and possible