Archie Hayes Martin Wittfooth transposes the type we typically associate with large animals to those much smaller, depicting foxes and birds as the heroic victors of this work while making larger animals much quieter and peaceful. Each of his paintings features these creatures in settings that deviate from the peaceful surrounding we would expect—trash and decay littering the ground while smog fills the sky.
“As a species, we share a pretty significant degree of similar reactions to the natural world: there are forms in nature that we seem to have innate responses to. Like a sense of awe or respect for large mammals and revulsion for spiders and snakes. I’m interested in this kind of shared pattern recognition and instinctive responses. I’m pretty invested in trying to imbue my paintings with some sense of ‘presence’ and hence am working with subject matter that can impart an emotional reading of it, not just rational analysis.”
via Juxtapoz
