Denver artist Kevin Sloan puts a twist on the historic work of famed naturalist John James Audubon. A new exhibit at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center features Sloan’s work and rarely seen images from the center's collection of Audubon engravings.
At the entrance to the exhibit, Audubon’s Sandhill Crane hangs near Sloan’s interpretation of the same bird. In Sloan’s huge seven-by-five foot acrylic painting, a sandhill crane holds a swirl of carnival admission tickets in it’s beak. The tickets threaten to ensnare the creature.
Other works by Sloan overlay a porcelain-like pattern on a bird to convey the idea of fragility. In another, a bird stands atop a house of cards to represent a perilous balance in nature.
Sloan combines realism and fantasy to create allegory and story and to draw the viewer into a visual dialogue about nature and the manmade world.
“A Naturalist & an Artist: John James Audubon & Kevin Sloan” is on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center through May 31.
