Caught Diptych

Oil paint, acrylic paint, canvas, fishing line, and fishing hooks

Fish 1 x 3 feet, Shark 1 x 4 feet (approx.)

In the early summer of 2023, my family discovered a dead, bloated, and sun-kissed fish bobbing across Clear Lake, Iowa. There was so much beauty in the fish that would otherwise have remained hidden at the bottom of the lake, alive and well. Although this fish seemed to have died of natural causes, the same couldn’t be said for the dozens of fish being caught on Clear Lake at the exact moment we viewed the bloated fish. Beauty and life are so easily taken, not just in a lake or a body of water, but in every aspect of nature. The fish and the shark are two representatives of creatures taken for human consumption with no thought to environmental consequences or the taking of life. The use of fishing lines to sew the forms back together represents the irony of reconstructing with the tool used to destroy.