Conspiracy, Contagion or Unkindness …
Painting corvids during the time of Covid.
Back in February, 2020, vaguely aware of a pandemic on the horizon I did not set out to do a Corvid series. I simply painted a raven because the small 3D printed raven skull was the object I had on hand. Raven 1 was painted in studios with studio lighting. Then for lack of something better to do, I again started a raven painting with studio lighting. Then with sheltering in place, at home, I found the raven was there so I made another raven painting, well, actually two more, finding it easier to work on more than one painting at a time and not having to watch paint dry. Both painting again were from the raven skull. I was however finding it hard to get the lighting to be the same at different times of the day. Raven 5 is the raven I see every day—the raven sitting on the top of a computer monitor. By Raven 6 and Raven 7, I needed help and went to an online site where not only did they have that raven skull but an archive of lots of bird skulls. The University of Dundee Museum Collections lets you download their files for printing or view their skull virtually and rotate the skull as you wish. So Raven 6 though Raven 10 were painted not just from my small skull but also from screen shots of virtual rotations. With Ravens 8 to Raven 10 I also did my own photographs to help with the process. Raven 11 comes directly from one of those photographs, as does Raven 12 and Raven 13. I found elements in the photograph that I started including into the paintings. Some of the color choices also came from the photographs.
I woke up one morning and realized I was painting Corvids in the time of Covid and that made the decision on just how many painting would end up in the series. Nineteen then seemed the right number.
At first my paintings were influenced by my photographs but by Raven 14 my photography started to be influenced by the painting. The photographs for Raven 14, Raven 15 and Raven 19 have a lot of work done in Photoshop.
I decided Raven 16 would represent the plague mask of the Plague and set out to photograph the skull to suggest that. As the series got nearer to Raven 19 the shadows became more and more important. I found will all the Ravens the painting were not isolated from my life or the world around me. Raven 11 has been called the White Supremacy Raven and was made at the time of the protests in the streets. As I approached Raven 19 the shadows became more and more important to the paintings. Like the importance of virtual reality in the world I now live in and these times, there is a blurring between the real and the virtual.
I find with this series I learned to paint and to enjoy painting, but I also learned more about myself and photography. I think the Ravens will change how I think about my photography.