"clairvoyance" was the first piece in my "urban vs. wildlife" series. I painted this with a mix of acrylic hand brushing and air brushing. it was the beginning of my concept for this series, using the wild animal as the focus, and a "bokeh" style of painting in the background - much like you see in photography. my intention was to show the coexistence between animals and humans and how we have learned to live together. while beautiful, it leaves the animals at a large disadvantage. we take their land, build on it, and then ironically see them as the trespassers. this painting was to show a deer caught in headlights, or rather, the gruesome reality of a deer about to be hit by incoming traffic. the reason this is called "clairvoyance" is because three days after I completely finished this piece, I hit a deer on the highway going 65mph and totaled my car. the deer popped out of nowhere and didn't even give me a chance to react, it ran right in front of me but everyone in my car was unharmed. I was afraid to keep going with my series as I felt like I had just painting into my future. since then, I switched my narrative to embody and embrace the wild animal as the powerful subject in my pieces. the fox and the mountain lion came after this piece in my series, and I am happy to say I have not hit either of those animals with my car.
