Sandra Stanton, exploring empathic connection between humans and animals
For the last decade, I’ve been exploring the empathic connection between humans and other species sensed in moments of stillness. In these paintings, this nonverbal primal link lies just below the surface of awareness as it flows through psychological and spiritual levels in a watery landscape on the brink of devastating climate disruption, Contemporary models and wildlife unite to look for hope as they warn of catastrophes to come with a shared sense of dread.
Setting everyone in water emphasizes the drastic changes our planet is undergoing. In addition, it focuses attention on the individuality of each model through portraiture.
Another one of my primary concerns is to portray wildlife with as much empathy and dignity as the humans who sit for me. Other species may represent messengers from the spirit world, messengers from the unconscious, or messengers from Nature seeking to communicate with us. This is a world where arrays of familiar and diverse elements unite in extraordinary circumstances, where an exterior narrative is no more unlikely than its interior counterpart, where other species conduct us to unseen, unfamiliar, or perhaps familiar, realms.
Sandra Stanton
Oct 17, 2020