Evan Lovejoy | Study of a Thylacine

Artist Statement

I have been surrounded by animals my entire life. From the housecats of my early childhood to the less familiar creatures I came into contact with while working in zoos, farms, marine biology labs, and veterinarian clinics as a young adult, the animal has been central to my experience. When I began to experiment with the subject matter in painting, I was drawn inexorably toward these dominant experiences.

I have an intense fascination with the way in which human beings perceive animals. Their forms are hijacked, and they become surrogates for our ideas, stories, and symbols, despite their inherent isolation from the human thought process. The true animal becomes more and more separated from our consciousness and is replaced by something artificial: a chimera of images and ideas created through a maelstrom of cartoons, fables, wildlife documentaries, museum dioramas, conservationist policies, and zoos. The animals I paint are not representations of their real-life counterparts, but instead display a form that is entirely an artifice.

Painting with acrid colour and grounding the animal body in pockmarked, desolate landscapes, I hope to encapsulate my own dichotomous relationship with animals — a mixture of wonder for the natural world and disgust with anthropogenic environmental destruction.

Artist CV

Education
2008 – 2012, University of South Florida, BFA in Studio Art

Group Exhibitions – Selection
2013

“First” – Fukinsei Art Lab, Sarasota, Florida

2012

“The Vault” – Exchange National Bank – Tampa, Florida

“Chromastasis” – The Centre Gallery – Tampa, Florida

“Contrast Media” – William and Nancy Oliver Gallery – Tampa, Florida

Solo Exhibitions – Selection

2012

“Hypnagogia” – Clothesline Gallery – Sarasota, Florida