“Our symbiotic relationship with nature [has become] the most pressing spiritual and political need of our time” –Suzi Gablik[1]

My creative work investigates a balance between the beauty of our natural world and hidden threats to our existence. Illness and well-being, as it relates to the environment as well as our selves, is a central theme present to the work’s motivations and imagery. My paintings have explored many levels of environmental interference and interface: specific ecological systems interrupted, disease emerging and/or cured, as well as the larger implication of our ability to easily create or destroy.

The content of the recent work includes references to unchecked chemical use, environmental mismanagement, propagation of certain species at the detriment of others and related pathogens. The paintings and drawings often contain a deliberate visual density that is symbolic of the profound persistence of nature, as well as a confusion of how to protect it from harm. The dangers, often represented through molecular formulae, aggressive non-native vegetation, and microscopic representations of disease, are equally beautiful, providing their own duplicitous seduction.

Ultimately, I enjoy exploring dichotomies—abstraction versus representation, the personal versus the global—and with this, these pieces additionally traverse between tangible and psychological landscape. They are about the health of self, as well as the health of our ecological existence—an undeniable, yet often under-recognized, symbiosis.

-Lisa Tubach