My creative work investigates a balance between the beauty of our natural world and hidden threats to our existence. Working with content that includes critically-endangered species, unchecked chemical use, references to environmental mismanagement and various related pathogens, the paintings and drawings 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 other elements, are equally beautiful, providing their own duplicitous seduction. Ultimately, I enjoy exploring dichotomies—abstraction versus representation, the personal versus the global—and because of 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