The balance of nature is a story of life and death. Virtually all living organisms depend on other organisms for food; in most cases, when something is eaten, its life must end.
Even the building of our homes or the printing of our newspapers involves the death of trees and sometimes whole forests. Too often we refuse to face this fact. We buy our meat neatly packaged in plastic; in fact, our entire lives seem to be done up in neat packages. We are often simply consumers, with less and less involvement in the real world, decision making, or the consequences of our actions. We can see this in the crisis of our forests, our soils, our garbage and our pollution.
This painting shows the tougher side of nature, but it is nonetheless real and important. I found the imagery very exciting. It gave me the chance to have fun with vivid colours and the repetition of very strong forms, as shown in the skull, horns, claws and beak. I think this is one of my more powerful and interesting works.