Influenced by my upbringing in a rural environment, my paintings explore a hierarchy between humanity and nature within a sociological and psychological context. I layer carefully rendered animal imagery over the human body to symbolize an ideal that asserts naturalism over artificiality. In the background of each image, the bodily flesh is painted anonymously, conveying the figure as an ambiguous and dehumanized part of the landscape. It is a sensibility one might internalize from being immersed in the aesthetics and vastness of remote wild places. This symbolism can also speak directly to the subconscious where the animal represents a human desire to return to a natural state or instinct. I create settings with irrational spatial relationships to reflect the tension of this paradox and to engage my work in an environmental discourse questioning the relevance or placement of animals in contemporary society.