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Human activity is causing the mass extinction of plant and animal species at an alarming rate. I paint carefully rendered, miniature portraits of endangered animals (in this case, a gray wolf) into larger compositions to raise questions about Earth’s biodiversity crisis and the place of wildlife within increasingly unstable habitats. The swirling and exploding shapes, bright colors, and unlikely spatial relationships of the greater painting illustrate how our progressively chaotic environment is displacing fauna and the systems that support it.
From poaching, farming and agricultural projects, urbanization, and other operations that encroach on natural spaces; to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, higher temperatures, and the multiplying disasters such as fires, hurricanes, and floods that result from that; the wild animals on our planet are under tremendous risk of annihilation. The consequences of this jeopardize the future of all of us. I urge people to contemplate what we risk losing.

Kara Maria

kara@karamaria.com