Works from
An Invitation to Mercy
curated by Alison Alstrom
with SF painters Alison Alstrom, Deirdre White and Rommel Romo

November, 2024 at Bane Gallery
65 Capp Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Taxidermy pheasant lying in front of a grey-blue background
Taxidermy pheasant on a blue table against an orange wall
White woman with glasses and hair pulled back, facing the viewer holding a taxidermy pheasant
Partially decomposed crow on a table next to an off-white wall
Crow skull on an off-white background
Partially decomposed crow on a grey-blue background
Partially decomposed crow on a table next to an off-white wall

Crow Remains #1

18x24

Oil on Panel

SOLD

This painting and the two that follow are my first forays into an examination of our collective culpability in anonymous suffering. These begin a series called, "Collateral Damage" , which I intend to lead me to a larger work with the same title.

Show Statement

In selected paintings from an ongoing series, a broken pheasant taxidermy acts as stand-in protagonist in an exploration of vulnerability. Also included here are studies for a work-in-progress in which the remains of a crow found on the side of the road serves in an investigation of culpability in anonymous suffering.

I first started painting dead birds a long time ago when my cat brought a dead robin into my apartment. I didn’t wonder about it at the time, but made study after study, reveling in its complicated beauty. When someone challenged my use of the bird, asked if it was mere exploitation, I began to insert myself, actual or implied, into the paintings as a way to better understand my affinity. One thing I learned is that if I look closely enough, there is beauty in form itself, or maybe the beauty is in the attention paid. I’m still asking those questions. These paintings look back to that earlier work.