Gentrification has long been a way for the wealthy to displace cultures for their own financial gain. It results in higher rent, demographic change, displacement, redlining, foreclosures, the list goes on. The magnitude of gentrification is explored through abstract artist Julie Mehretu’s art. She utilizes components like diagrams, maps, and architectural plans to signify the vastness of contemporary infrastructure. Often working at a large scale and with many layers, Mehretu is able to create an immense feeling of space. Christine Y. Kim, curator of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, says about Mehretu’s work; “There is an incredible sense of humanity in Julie’s work, creating a space, a feel, a moment for thinking about invisible bodies, migrations, lost histories, complex communication, protest and congregation,” (1). Mehretu accomplishes this through her use of exclusively human-made structures and symbols, like the aforementioned architectural plans and maps. She also utilizes shapes that seem to be symbols of humans, like the small circles used in her painting Stadia II (fig. 1), without providing us with naturalistic representations.
The role of humanity as a central theme in Mehretu’s work is influenced by her background. Born in Ethiopia in 1970, Julie Mehretu was raised in the United States after escaping political violence in her country of origin at age seven. Displacement is a common thread in much of her work. This could be seen as a connection to her own displacement she experienced as a child. Both of Mehretu’s parents were in education, with her father a professor and her mother a teacher. The family settled in East Lansing, Michigan. She was an excellent student and earned her undergraduate in art at Kalamazoo College in Michigan. During her time in college, she spent a semester abroad in Dakar, Senegal at Cheikh Anta Diop University. She then went on to Rhode Island School of Design with a full scholarship, where she studied painting and printmaking. It was here at Rhode Island School of Design that Mehretu really began to develop her personal artistic style and distinctive mark making. She is part of the LGBTQ+ community, identifying as gay, and came out to her friends during high school, but not to her parents until college. Her identity has a gay black woman is something she discusses frequently. After graduating Rhode Island School of Design, Mehretu moved to New York and set up her studio. Since this time, she has gained worldwide recognition, showing at Exit Art in Soho, Project Gellery in Harlem, the Museum of Modern Art, Carnegie International, Sydney Biennial, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, to name a few. Mehretu’s work can also be seen in the lobby of Goldman Sachs’s in lower Manhattan. Mehretu’s Mural (fig. 2) is an eighty foot by twenty-three-foot piece was commissioned by the investment banking company in 2007. It took two years to complete, with the help of around thirty studio assistants. Mehretu was paid five million dollars for the piece, but around eighty percent of this was put into fabrication costs. It commands the Goldman Sachs’s entrance lobby while also, somewhat uniquely, being in view to those outside the building. It has a rather busy composition, with layers upon layers of colorful shapes, dots, and lines especially focused in the middle of the piece. These shapes and lines vary greatly in size, from tiny details fading out towards the edges, to irregular-shaped swaths of color. Some areas play with perspective of line, others resemble recognizable symbols like planes and landmasses, and others are comprised of simple geometry. On both the left and right side of Mural, the shapes and lines fade out into the off-white canvas. The color palette in this piece, like much of her work, ranges greatly, consisting of vibrant greens, reds, and yellows, next to more muted shades of grey, blue, beige, and black. Upon closer inspection of Mural, networks of architectural drawings are visible under the bolder and more abstract elements of the piece. These architectural plans are among the elements that connect Mural to capitalism and gentrification. According to Mehretu, the bold, curving, orange and blue lines that can be seen in the first layer are meant to represent a “map-like network” (1). The second layer consists of the architectural plans, some of which include a Massachusetts bank, the New Orleans cotton exchange, and the façade of the New York Stock Exchange. These are all institutions that have been catalysts of gentrification and racial discrimination. Another element in this piece that shows an abstract connection to humanity is the small black marks made with sumi ink. These, according to Mehretu, are called “characters”. These “characters” create various formations that mirror human activities like migration. This representation of migration paired with the architectural plans of financial institutions provides us with a connection between corporate greed and the displacement of people of color from their communities. Mehretu again represents humanity in her piece Stadia II (fig. 1). It is composed of ink and acrylic on canvas, and features a neutral, beige background that contrasts with the vibrant variety of colors layered on top. The majority of these colors are concentrated in the top half of the painting. Mehretu utilizes color blocking that is reminiscent of the De Stijl and Bauhaus art styles, which focused on geometry and grids. Like in the Bauhaus and De Stijl design styles, Mehretu uses lines to move the viewer’s eye around the painting. She separates herself from these movements by being less strict with the form and placement of the lines, which come from every side and corner of the canvas, with some perfectly straight and others swirling throughout the middle of the piece. The straight lines resemble roads, scaffolding, and other similar infrastructure, while the curved lines could be likened to wind, movement, and sound. With these characteristics it is easy to see the correlation to a stadium, referencing the name of the painting. The angles of some of the shapes, specifically the orange diamonds on the left side of the piece, are angled down. This, along with the line work already discusses, creates a focal point at the bottom center of the piece, reminiscent of fans focusing on a sports game or other performance. Mehretu’s HOWL, eon (I, II) (fig. 3) focuses specifically on western United States, which has a brutal history of colonialism. This diptych, like most of her work, is comprised of many layers. The foundation for HOWL, eon is a variety of both images and paintings from the American West. Instead of utilizing blocks of colors like in Stadia II, this piece consists of more subdued, hazier colors, similar in appearance to watercolor paintings. This pairs with layers of black marks to create a piece that looks comparable to a map. This could be a representation for how white colonizers valued the land of the west and how they could profit from it more than they valued the native people who the land belonged to. A quote from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art says about HOWL, eon: “Mehretu conjures the sublime incompressibility of our ever-changing world through abstraction.” (2). One way she accomplishes this in HOWL, eon is through the ambiguity of the dark marks in the upper layers of the piece. Because of the variety in the types of lines, a feeling of movement is created. This movement feels negative and confrontational because of the heavy concentration of lines and dots in most of the piece. This creates an allegory for the conflict that gentrification creates. The use of layering in HOWL, eon results in a blurred effect, which is a symbol for multiple areas of gentrification. Everyday society in the United States is often called “a blur” because of the fast-moving nature of life in capitalism. Blurring can also be connected to confusion, which relates to the complexity of the issues gentrification causes within the United States, such as wealth inequality and the destruction of cultural diversity. The title of this piece, HOWL, could also be seen as a connection to the 1956 poems by Allen Ginsberg of the same name. Ginsberg’s Howl I discusses similar themes to those that Mehretu represents in her work. It speaks about poverty, starvation, education, and even mentions people who “wandered around and around at midnight in the railroad yard wondering where to go” (3). These are all conditions and consequences of gentrification. Ginsberg also mentions New York City, Chicago, Denver, and Atlantic City. Gentrification is more prevalent in cities, so Mehretu referencing a poem that specifically names impacted areas is another way she is able to critique societal issues while still working abstractly. Another way Julie Mehretu is “creating space” is by opening the art world to others who are like her. Being an immigrant, BIPOC, and part of the LGBTQ community, she is making space for others with those identities to share their experiences. Writer for New York Times Robin Pogrebin discusses the balance of changing the art world while also being a “member of the establishment” (1) in her article “Julie Mehretu’s Reckoning with Success”. In an interview with Pogrebin, Mehretu expressed that we are now seeing a “call to reconstruction” where works from artists of color are finally becoming more represented in museums and galleries. This term, reconstruction, has a dual meaning in terms of Mehretu’s work. While Mehretu literally works to reconstruct the ideas people have around issues like gentrification, her pieces themselves could also be seen as snapshots of reconstructions. This can be seen through her use of both organic and inorganic forms, variety in color and scale, spatial awareness, layering, and use of empty space. These elements combine to form art pieces that look like structures have been torn apart and are in the process of being reconstructed. This, again, is a great metaphor for what needs to be done in order to correct expansive issues like gentrification. The combination of this with the large scale that she typically works with describes the massiveness of these issues, without being literal or naturalistic depictions of the issues. Watercolor landscapes. Textile art. Figure work. Abstractions. Ceramics. Process Meets Practice: Balancing Creating and Teaching offers all of these styles of art, created by five woman artists. There have been countless all men’s art exhibitions, whether that is the intention of the exhibition or not. Malado Baldwin points out, “even though 51% of visual artists working today are women, just 5% of artwork featured in major U.S. museums is made by women” (Baldwin). With this context, I believe that all women’s shows are necessary and especially relevant to our contemporary times. This exhibition has connections to national and international art movements, underscoring the importance of what artists create locally in New Hampshire, all created through the lens of women. Here I will be discussing why shows like this are relevant by analyzing three artworks, all focused on figures, from this exhibition: Cynthia Worthen Vascak’s pieces Lady Hawk and Gesture along with Annette W. Mitchell’s Portrait of Steve Sweedler in the context of gender and contemporaneity.
Gesture, created by Cynthia Worthen Vascak, is an energetic, and as the title says, gestural, charcoal piece. The main subject of the drawing is a figure, presumed to be a woman, who has heavy shading in the hair, between the arms, and in the lower right-hand corner to make the woman’s shadow. Other than this heavy shading, the piece is mostly linework and open white space, with the exception of some light shading behind the woman on the left side. It features the woman with her head down and arms stretched out in front of her. This position could be seen as the model bowing to the observer. This piece is a good example of the importance of gender and how including context about the artist affects the way the art is perceived. If this piece was created by a man, I would have come to the conclusion that he was drawing the woman to inflate his idea of being dominant over her. This relates to Carol Duncan’s idea of the women being portrayed as an “obedient animal” (Duncan, 297) by male artists. Despite this, to an extent, Gesture still possesses these connotations even though it was created by a woman artist. This is due to the extensive history of women being used as objects in art and society and the subsequent internalized oppression that this creates. According to the artist, this piece “is very quick, fluid, and spontaneous”. This idea of gestural mark-making and spontaneity relates to the Abstract Expressionist movement. Many Abstract Expressionist artists, like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, worked with large scale paintings. This piece is much smaller and much more representational, but still carries that concept of creating action through gesture. It allows for movement and looseness while still representing the human body. For teachers specifically, these are very valuable skills to teach students, as they allow for exploration and therefore foster deeper learning. I also think this piece teaches viewers that for an art piece to be worthy of a gallery you do not have to spend hours upon hours creating it. Lady Hawk, also by Cynthia Worthen Vascak, is egg tempera on gesso panel, and according to the artist was inspired by Arthurian legends. It features a woman with long, wavy, red hair in a blue robe holding a hawk. The primary color is gold, which shines over the entire background and accents the woman’s robe and bird handling glove, which are both intricately detailed. One distinguishing quality of the robe is the abundance of folds and the movement that they create throughout the piece. This movement continues in the woman herself. Unlike what is commonly seen in the history of the representation of women in art, this woman is in action. Although it is not an extremely dynamic pose, like what is often seen in ancient Roman sculptures of men leaping, fighting, stabbing, etcetera, by having both of her arms raised and one of them holding a bird of prey she is shown as more than an object. One of the textile works present in this show, Annette W. Mitchell’s Portrait of Steve Sweedler, is made of cut pieces of cotton fabrics. The focus, Steve Sweedler, is shown at profile view wearing a coordinating blue shirt, jacket, and hat. The piece also has a green, leafy background. This background is relevant because it connects to the man’s personal life as he, according to the artist, “was our [Plymouth State University’s] resident tree expert”. The warm tones in the man’s skin are brought to life as they are complimented by the cool toned blues and greens. I find the inclusion of this piece, and Mitchell’s other fiber piece, Color of the Soul, to be important in representing a media that has historically been linked to women and therefore pushed aside. This relates to Linda Nochlin’s answer to the question “Why have there been no great women artists?”, that “There have been no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness” (Nochlin, 1). Under our current and historic views, men and the art they create are the standard and therefore are what is considered to be great. Portrait of Steve Sweedler almost looks as if Mitchell is “painting” with fabric. Because of this, even though the artist does not mention it, I see this piece as a response to fiber art being regarded as worth less than the traditional male dominated mediums. There are a couple things this exhibition could have benefitted from. The curator could have utilized the digital format more effectively. Including more images from different angles would have made it easier for those viewing online to have an experience more similar to actually being there in person. A video walkthrough could have worked to accomplish this as well. One positive aspect is the brief statement describing the show at the top of the webpage, but I would have preferred it to go deeper into the making of this exhibition and why these artists were chosen for it. Providing some information on what challenges the artists have encountered while being a woman artist would have bettered my experience and understanding as well. Another weakness of Process Meets Practice: Balancing Creating and Teaching is that it lacks in diversity, comprised of all white (and/or white passing women as their specific identities are not mentioned). With this said, due to the majority white population in New Hampshire and in Plymouth specifically, this makes for an accurate representation of the professors at Plymouth State University. This brings me to a quote from Maura Reilly, “While I yearn for a moment when there is no longer a need for women-only exhibitions, we are not there yet (just as we are not with all artists from marginalized communities)” (Reilly) which points to the necessity that is intersectionality. While this show is successful in highlighting women artists, I wish it could have highlighted artists of color as well. As a woman artist studying at Plymouth State University, I enjoyed learning about some of the influential women artists that have helped to shape our university through this exhibition. This show was successful in showing a wide range of art by including different concepts, sizes, subjects, movements, and mediums. Analyzing Gesture, Lady Hawk, and Portrait of Steve Sweedler allowed me to see how recent works by female artists differ from historical works by male artists and the importance that representing them in a museum holds. Steve Irwin once said, “I believe our biggest issue is the same biggest issue that the whole world is facing, and that’s habitat destruction” (1). I grew up in a rural area. There wasn’t much to do besides be outside with nature. Because of this I was always around animals, whether it be my pets or the wild deer, moose, bear, rabbits, birds, etcetera I grew up seeing almost every day. Like many people my age, I grew up watching Steve Irwin educate people on animals. This, paired with my environment growing up and the animals I interacted with, cultivated a love for animals. A common theme and the overall purpose of my art is to bring awareness to issues that animals are facing. Climate change is an issue that affects every living thing on this planet. One result of climate change and human impact is the displacement of animals from their habitats. I represent these animals in the hopes that my work will influence more people to care about and help them in any way they can.
The main subjects of my pieces are animals. Recently I have been focusing on threatened, endangered, or extinct animals within North America. My color palette usually consists of black, white, greys, browns and tans, oranges, golds, and blues. My backgrounds are generally simple, with flat color or some texture and color variation. My subjects tend to be painted in an illustrative style, without departing too much from nature. This illustrative style comes partly from my graphic design background and is something I have been including in my painting and drawing styles. I include human elements interacting with the animals I depict. These objects can vary, from more subtle ropes and wires, to daggers and jewelry. One common element is the absence of detail in the eyes. I will usually portray the animal’s eye with solid white, or white with some slight grey variation in order to create form. This gives the animal a ghostly or empty look. This look conveys how some humans see animals, as empty “things” that can be used for profit or discarded. The International Union for Conservation of Nature has concluded that extinction rates are accelerating. They studied 4,588 species and found that, as of 2021, twenty-five percent are “classified as threatened with extinction” and this recent period of extinction of mammals is “proceeding much more rapidly than has been normal for millions of years” (2). Many people have heard of the recent (in geologic terms as the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old) ice age extinction event, which occurred around 12,000 years ago. This extinction event involved megafauna like wooly mammoths and wooly rhinos. What some may not know is this ice age extinction was due to two primary things: climate change and humans. In fact, although there are a few exceptions, “all of the well-documented mammal extinctions of the last 5,000 years or so can be traced to human activities” (3). This is not just happening to mammals either. Our current geological epoch, the Holocene, has seen the extinction of over 520 types of birds. Most other types of life, from frogs to crocodiles to snails, are all facing similar fates. We are currently experiencing another mass extinction and yet again, it is our fault. This is an important topic that more people should know about, and therefore it is basis for my art. One of the main human-produced causes of this extinction is habitat destruction. Natural habitats are destroyed in order to make room for agriculture, industrialization and construction, recreation, and more. There are a few different types of habitat loss. Habitat degradation occurs when the habitat is still technically intact, but it is not able to function as it should. This forces species to migrate or die. Habitat fragmentation involves the separation of habitats which causes difficulties in mating, communication, and acquisition of food. Habitat destruction is the most extreme and means that the habitat can no longer support species. Some causes of habitat loss fossil fuel harvesting, deforestation, urbanization, logging, mining, creation of dams, and pollution, just to name a few. This is all causing irreversible damage. Michael MacCally discusses this in his book Life Support: The Environment and Human Health. MacCally states “while species stocks may recover following mass-extinction events over the course of millions of years of evolution and may fill in ecosystem niches that had once been occupied, it must be understood that these replacing species are new ones and that the unique information encoded by the DNA of the lost species is gone forever” (4). One of my biggest influences is tattoos. Evidence of tattoos are found as far back as 5000 BCE Japan, where figurines were found to have painted and engraved marks representing tattoos. A preserved man, known as “Otzi the Iceman”, who died around 3300 BCE, was discovered to have multiple tattoos all over his body. Despite the long history tattoos have, they are still considered taboo in some places. For example, some Christians criticize tattoos for being a “sin”. Some people still associate tattoos with old stereotypes, like European sailors in the 1700s who would come back from world travels with new tattoos from other cultures and were looked down upon. Women specifically may be labeled as “promiscuous”. In the United States this stems, in part, from the 1933 book Tattoo: Secrets of a Strange Art by Albert Perry, which connected the act of being sexually promiscuous to having tattoos. Although in recent years they have become more accepted by American society and the art world, there is still resistance to calling them “fine art” or presenting them in museums and galleries. There is a difficulty here in how tattoos can be displayed. Similar to street art, the action of creating a piece is important and not something all viewers can experience. There are some parts of tattooing that can easily be presented in a gallery, like tattoo flash sheets (a grouping of pre-made designs usually on a poster or in a book that can be chosen and tattooed quickly). Japanese American artist Takahiro Kitamura said, “I think a lot of the general public considers us artists, but I don’t think the fine art world knows what to do with us” (8). Part of this is due to what happens to a tattoo once it is done. It is more closely associated with the person wearing the tattoo than the artist. Click here to see one of my tattoos by artist Heather Jusczyk I like to reference tattoos in my more traditional painting pieces. One thing that draws me to including tattoo imagery in my work is that I have tattoos myself. After experiencing a tattoo artist working firsthand, it is difficult for me to not associate tattooing with fine art. Something else that draws me to it relates to the history of tattooing that I briefly discussed. Tattoo imagery has not been represented in museums and galleries for very long. This is why I think the utilization of tattoo styles and subjects provide a freshness to my paintings. I paint in a clean, illustrative style that is present in a lot of tattoo styles. One form of art that I have looked to for inspiration is woodblock prints, specifically in the Ukiyo-e style. Prints in this style typically include neutral colors, with an emphasis on beiges, browns, black, white, and grey, with the occasional pop of color. One reason I gravitate towards this color palette is because it has a timeless feel, as neutral colors have always been used in art, either as the focus or to enhance the louder colors. Ukiyo-e is a great example of this, as it originated in the early 1700s, but it feels like it could both fit in today and long before the 1700s. Another interesting theme within this style is many pieces will not have formal foregrounds, middle grounds, and backgrounds. I like to utilize this within my own pieces. The indistinctness of the area around the animal illustrates the issue of their displacement. Click the links below to see a couple Ukiyo-e examples: Toshusai Sharaku 1794, Kabuki Actor Otani Oniji III as Yakko Edobei, woodblock print Tomioka Eisen 1904, Beauty and Puppies, book illustration Ukiyo-e is cited as being an influence on the Art Nouveau movement, which I have looked at a lot when creating my own art. Art nouveau is characterized by artists like Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Gustav Klimt, and Alphonse Mucha. Art nouveau aimed to be an art that felt appropriate to “modern” (late 1800s, early 1900s) times. This is something that I try to accomplish when incorporating graphic design and tattoo art in my work. At the beginning of the art nouveau movement, Charles Darwin published his sixth edition of Origin of the Species, discussing evolution. It was affordable and contained illustrations, unlike his previous editions. This is part of what influenced the artists of art nouveau to include nature as an integral part of the movement. My own journey mirrors this, as part of my passion for creating art about nature comes from an interest in evolution and animal science. Style wise, art nouveau prints have always been appealing to me. I enjoy the flat planes of color that are arranged and shaped in ways that move the eye throughout the piece and as a result I try to emulate that in my own work, which you can see examples of above. Click below to see a couple Art Nouveau examples: Aubrey Beardsley 1894, The Dancers Reward, Salomé, block print Eugène Grasset 1892, Encre L. Marquet, print The style that I paint in has an influence on the mediums that I use. Acrylic paint is my preferred medium, as it has a quick dry time which allows me to layer and get solid planes of color more efficiently than with something like oil paint, and it allows for a sharp line quality. In a way acrylic paint versus oil paint can be compared to tattoo art versus traditional fine art. Oil paintings have generally been seen as more valuable and acrylic less so, just like how tattoos have historically been viewed as less than when compared to paintings and other traditional forms of art. I occasionally use gouache and watercolor paired with pen. Although these types of paints are more difficult to be precise with, they still have quick dry times like acrylic, but allow for a softer feel. Pairing pen with this helps to add the graphic, tattoo-style quality to my pieces. I think it is important to discuss the specific artists that have influenced my work. Eric Ennion was a natural history illustrator who focused primarily on birds. In his work he managed to capture the look and energy of the birds, often without landscapes or exact detail. In his work, compared to that of earlier wildlife illustrators, he was “no longer concerned to get every detail right in the photographic sense” (9). When I created art throughout high school, I was focused on making things as realistic as possible. As my art has evolved over the years, I have adopted the same thinking as Ennion because I have learned that full realistic detail is not always better or more enjoyable to paint. Walton Ford, an American painter and illustrator, is another one of my influences. The message behind his art is similar to mine, as he oftentimes represents extinct species. His work has been described as having a “powerful, graphic impact,” and a “faux-antique style” (10). One thing I strive for in my work is Ford’s idea of attraction and repulsion, where he creates beautiful art but once it is looked at closer, disturbing things come to light. I want my work to be attractive to people, but I also want the viewer to notice the details in the work that point to climate change, animal distress, and the harm humans cause other animals. One difference between our art is that Ford describes himself as a maximalist, whereas I prefer to have less detail, which relates back to my discussion on realistic detail and my discussion about Eric Ennion. My work has similar concepts to Tiffany Bozic, a contemporary female artist. Specifically, her acrylic painting on wood panel “The Rabbit Hole” (see the image below) interests me. Formally, the painting is depicting a decomposing adult rabbit with vibrant flowers growing out of it, and a butterfly on top of the flowers. Next to the adult rabbit are two young rabbits, sitting on top of autumnal-toned leaves. Behind all of this is the natural wood grain. I think composing this piece in this way is interesting and effective, as she lets the markings and texture of the wood panel shine. In doing this she creates an interesting background without actually having to paint it. I think the juxtaposition of a decomposing adult rabbit with the living younger ones can communicate rebirth but should really be seen in a more morbid light, representing death, loss of a loved one, and consequences of human impacts on wildlife. I think the flowers and butterflies represent the fact that life will go on, but it will not be the same. In this vain, Bozic is described as being “in the forefront of artists today redefining the aesthetics and imperative of global change” (12). Click here to see Tiffany Bozic 2019, The Rabbit Hole, 20” x 16”, acrylic on maple panel Another contemporary female artist I have been influenced by is Christina Mrozik. Her work tends to consist of animals, oftentimes distorted or made of flowers and other plants. One thing I carry into my own work is Mrozik’s use of background. Oftentimes there is a solid plane of one color behind the subject matter. When this isn’t done there are usually hints of shadows, subtle textures, or understated frames. This really allows for the subject matter to shine. Although her work (similar to Walton Ford) has a beautiful quality to it, with its crisp details, smooth blending, and pleasing color choices, it has serious undertones and sometimes ugly or grim elements like intestines. Despite having not gone as far as adding intestines to convey my message, I try to use human elements entangled with animals to accomplish this. One comment that comes up when showing my work is that the message behind it could be made stronger if I included things like blood and gore. The reason I choose not to do this is because I have seen a lot of examples of people who use gory details in order to guilt trip the viewer into caring for the animal. This is not me saying that anyone who uses these methods is invalid or makes bad work, as many artists, similar to Christina Mrozik, are really successful in doing so and convey their message well. I prefer my work to make people aware of their lack of empathy by making the animal seem almost like an object with their empty eyes and interaction with human elements. I want my art to combine aspects of traditional painting and past art movements, like Ukiyo-e and Art Nouveau, with the newer ideas of graphic design and tattoo art. My style has been influenced by artists like Walton Ford, Tiffany Bozic, and Christina Mrozik, who have a passion and drive to advocate for animals. I want to use my art to draw attention to and subsequently help nature, as climate change and one of its byproducts, animal displacement, are huge issues that are causing irreversible damage. Humans have inflicted so much pain on so many animals. I want my work in highlighting these animals and the causality of human actions to push more people to care about and as a result advocate for them. Sources
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