I was really excited when Lauren Grabelle emailed me about her work.  I had seen images from her series, Dead Things with Sugar, before, and she has a lot of great projects on her new website.  One of my favorite series of hers is Natural Boundaries.  I see a lot of my own work and the work of a few artists I admire in this project, in a refreshing way (the giraffe image reminded me immediately of Rebecca Norris Webb’s The Glass Between Us, and the African Wild Dogs image made me think of one of the projects I am working on right now)–and Lauren’s was shot in the early and mid-1990s!  Moments like these are something I love about art-making.

It always makes me happy to see that an artist’s whole oeuvre reflects a general interest in one area, and of course, I am even more appreciative when that area is animals.  Of her work, the artist says, “Originally from NJ, I moved to Montana to heal the wounds that are created by living in the most densely populated state and being so isolated from nature.  In Montana I see and love the land and its people differently each day, recording it with my approach of natural spontaneous capture.  My photography falls in the matrix where fine art and documentary meet; where I can tell truths about our relationships to other people, animals, nature, and ourselves.  My work is about empathy.”

Visit artist's site: laurengrabelle.com

Posted March 3rd, 2014