statement

This is about
Exotic pets,
Invasive species,
Native species
And domestic pets.
This is about false love and ignorant love.
This is about the conflicts, contradictions and consequences
Played-out in our local environment as the result
Of human action and human reaction.

The subject of this work is environmental, my natural surroundings, while the content layers social and psychological commentary.  My dialogue is with the biologist; animals, plants and their attributes become my vocabulary.  My recent work concentrates on the ubiquitous pencil.  The idea of that which is at hand, a pencil, the nature in my backyard, a backyard that can include the nearby Everglades or the Florida coral reef, paired with ideas of impermanence or the ephemeral.  Whether creating edible art, installation, sculpture or works on paper, I am always drawing.

This work includes invasive animals and plants of South Florida but most prominently the Burmese Python and an invasive species of apple snail.  South Florida is a mecca for exotic pets and the exotic pet trade.  Accidental and deliberate releases create havoc with our local native species.  The animals represented within the gut of the largest python in the drawing are the species found by biologists inside pythons caught in the Everglades, including a full grown deer and a domestic cat.  Local biologists participated in the painting out of this drawing of invasive species in a final performance.

bio

born: 1957, Greenwich, Connecticut

education

Florida International University, MFA, 2004
Florida International University, BFA, 2000

selected awards/honors

Raymond James & Associates Juror's Choice Award; 44th Founder's Juried Awards, The von Liebig Art Center, Naples, FL, 2004
Betty Laird Perry Purchase Award, MFA Exhibition, The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum, Miami, FL, 2004
Honorable Mention; Hollywood All Media Juried Biennial, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL, 2003

selected publications

Supermix: Union of the Diverse/Contemporary Art in Miami, Edgezones Press Miami, Miami, FL, 2008
Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center,National Drawing Annual, Manifest Press, 2007
Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center, Magnitude SEVEN 2006, Cincinnati, Ohio, Manifest Press, 2006
Miami New Times, "A Fine Sense Of Place," Miami, FL, December 23, 2004

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Eat Lionfish, Pyramid Studios, Miami, FL, 2011    
Ephemeral Mapping, Pyramid Studios, Miami, FL, 2010
Phototaxis, Deluxe Arts, Miami, FL, 2006
Gretchen Scharnagl: Installation, Broward Community College Art Gallery, Pembroke Pines, FL, 2005

selected group shows

Herron Galleries, The New Naturalists: Contemporary Artists in the Realm of Natural History, IUPUI, Indianapolis, IN 2012
Miami Beach Urban Studios, Transformation, Miami Beach, FL, 2011
Watson MacRae Gallery, Sacred Creatures, Sanibel Island. FL, 2011
Small Wonderz(art) Salon, Verge, Miami Beach, FL, Basel 2010