Jakob Bell - 2022

Artist's Statement

This is my final project, it is a three foot by four foot painting I did of humanity picking the fruit of the taxonomic tree of life. I was inspired by those pictures of taxonomic or evolutionary trees of life and how we focused so heavily on humanity and how they are always the center of that tree. It’s as if all of evolution has led to us. And I think that honestly is how we think about the planet. How we are the center of it all. I wanted to remove humanity from the center of that tree, and depict them taking fruit from the tree. This was my final painting in my painting class and I realized I was taking too long and needed to turn this in. So here it is! Hope you enjoy it.