Canary in the Mine, 2020, acrylic, mixed media, velvet fiber on canvas 12 x 12 inches

The canaries in the coal mine: I see artists as canaries in the coal mine. The artist's life unfolds in the subtle and tumultuous space between light and darkness, where all the potential options are carefully analyzed and creatively digested. Their divine intuition and painful sensitivity make them living barometers of emotional pressure. Thus, the artists were the first to subconsciously detect history's tectonic changes and give early warnings through their art. Many paid this visionary creative quality with their freedom or their lives.

For this work, I used acrylic on canvas. The yellow canaries are velvet fiber flocked onto the surface. Real needles pin down the barely visible bars of the cage/coal mine.