La Luz de Jesus Gallery is thrilled to present an online exclusive exhibition by artist Dianne Bennett

Dianne Bennett paints portraits of wildlife on road signs as warnings to STOP and ask ourselves what is sacred. She believes that wild beings connect us to the cosmos and are a vehicle of deliverance, transformation, and awakening– bearing witness to our traits of madness and over-consumption.

“eye witness/heavenly bodies at the end of the road”
Living in the Mojave Desert at the end of a dirt road with the jackrabbits, ravens, quail,other wild residents, I watch their daily struggle for survival even in the best of circumstances. In my isolation during quarantine, jackrabbits have become gurus, hummingbirds guides, quail council, and ravens harbingers.

When quarantine began in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic and life as we knew
it was canceled,the jackrabbit and cottontail rabbit population, already impacted by habitat loss and global climate change were facing a deadly disease of their own, the Rabbit hemorrhagic disease serotype 2 (RHDV2).

Upon finding several rabbit’s bodies in the desert near my home, and grieving our parallel experience of the pandemic with its uncertainty and threats, I began painting a series of reverential portraits of wild desert inhabitants and visitors on recycled numbered metal signs as prayers and offerings to whatever might be out there.

 

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