“My visual work documents the loss of other animals and highlights the significant and complex ways in which our lives, human and other animal, are bound and entangled together.
Animals figure prominently in many of the earliest known images painted by our human ancestors on the walls of ancient caves. From this point onward other animals have been visual themes for human cultures throughout the world. Our representations archive our thoughts and unearth a variety of frameworks that expose cultural interpretations, observations, stories, beliefs and assumptions about their lives. The animal figures in our art have conveyed themes of magical integration, balanced existence, subjugation, exploitation, sentimental attachment and marginalization, among others. These changing themes represent our shifting relationships with other animals.
In our present epoch, at a time of considerable biodiversity loss, it is each specific animal that my work commemorates. To see and draw awareness to their lives is my way of honoring them, for people to see, to think about and remember them.”
Website
http://www.ericagajewski.com
