#### ABSTRACT NATURE
“This was made by taking a dead eel, putting ink on it and stamping it over and over on the paper about 5,000 times to create this swarm or school of eels. Up close you can see that they’re an impression of an eel, although from afar they just appear to be squiggles. The life history of the freshwater eel is intriguing. The place where it spawns is a mystery. Nobody has ever witnessed them reproducing in the ocean. People speculate that they get in these big, tightly knit balls of up to several thousand fish and that’s how they aggregate to spawn. So ‘Abstract Nature’ is meant to simulate something that humans have never witnessed.”
COURTESY OF JAMES PROSEK
COURTESY OF JAMES PROSEK
#### FLYING FOX WITH LADY’S SLIPPERS
“This is part of a series of hybrid creatures I’ve been making. This fox was found dead in a field by my neighbor after I’d made the ‘Flying Fox’ painting. It had been covered by snow and my dog sniffed it out. He knew that I like to prepare specimens. I bought a big freezer to store it in before I began the taxidermy. I wanted to make it sleeping because it’s more of an unexpected, peaceful pose than having it growling or hissing. The hybrid creatures in general are meant to be a statement about how nature is capable of creat- ing anything and it’s not static, it’s always changing—almost like these creatures are possible, in a way. The flowers are made of clay. I made them myself with help from a women I met from Thailand.”
COURTESY OF JAMES PROSEK
#### BLACK SEA BASS
“This piece is part of an ocean fish series that was made into a book called ‘Ocean Fish- es’ which includes all of the paintings. It was part of a project to paint 35 Atlantic fishes life size. I caught that fish off of Westport, MA. Black Sea Bass in general don’t get that big, but a 5-6 pound sea bass is a big fish and we caught some big ones. I just thought it was the most beautiful fish, one of the most beautiful fish I’ve seen from our lo- cal oceans near Massachusetts. I really enjoyed depicting that fish because I got to use a lot of blues and purples. It’s one of those fish where it’s a record of an experience that I had. In this case, I caught it.
