Statement from the Artist

I have had a casual interest in animal science since childhood. As a boy, I spent many hours drawing creatures as bizarre as the ‘Streaked Tenrec’ and as elegant as the ‘Bohemian waxwing’ -- all copied from my 1984 Macmillan Illustrated Animal Encyclopedia. It wasn’t until 2015, however, that I took a deeper dive into birding and experienced some of these creatures off the page.

Witnessing the striking colors and behavior of the birds that inhabit or migrate through Missouri first-hand is exhilarating, and it definitely inspired me to read and learn much more about birds, their intelligence and their unique abilities.

Titled, The Last Beast in the Sky, this exhibit features multiple works of art on paper and canvas. Each painting is modeled after a photograph of a bird that I took in the wild.