Quarantine departs from the political to explore a deeply personal landscape of isolation. Just prior to the global pandemic, I retreated entirely from social media. When the lockdowns were subsequently enacted, I was confronted with a harsh, quiet reality: I had lost contact with 90% of my social circle. "Out of sight, out of mind" became a literal state of being, leaving me with a profound sense of abandonment and loss.
The painting captures the psychological weight of this period, reimagining the self as an Irish Elk trudging through a vast, frozen wasteland. I chose the prehistoric giant because it has been extinct for 40,000 years; it represents the terrifying sensation of being utterly forgotten. Because no one alive truly knows what the Irish Elk looked like, I relied on scant, contemporary Paleolithic cave paintings as a deep reference to reconstruct the animal as faithfully as possible.
Here, the great beast is inert, cold, and crying out into the void, its solitary existence punctuated only by the visible steam of its breath in the freezing air. It carries a heavy, fragile cargo: a cluster of Blue Morpho butterflies, the world's most collected butterfly species. The butterflies serve as a poignant symbol of preserved memory—the pinned, beautiful remains of the friendships I once held. Created through hours of intense watercolor application, Quarantine stands as a quiet monument to human disconnection and the cold architectural space of survival.
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WATERCOLOR: 28x40
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