Zoology: Patricia Traub

We come to art to discover essential meaning, to encounter things we have not yet experienced and perhaps, to reaffirm that which we hold most dear. The paintings of Patricia Traub bear witness to an artist's hand, devoted to portraying the profound truths born of the natural world. Her images invite us to encounter life in its most beautiful and exotic forms while displaying a naturalist's commitment to illustrating the innate dignity of each of her animal subjects. Her work exhibits a 17th century Dutch reverence for the sanctity of the optical realm with brushwork that provides an unsurpassed visual presence that is both nuanced and subtle. As viewers we are struck by astounding details such as tufts of fur, grasping talons, and glistening eyes. It is these very details that break the barriers be­tween our corporeal space and that of the pictorial domain. They invite us to take part in the instinctive world of her animal muses. Through her imagery we are, for the moment, viscerally reminded of a still unbroken connection to our own lost Eden. Traub travels extensively to observe and document wildlife firsthand. She seeks to encounter rare and endangered animals in their native settings in order to better understand their heroic struggles to survive. Traub's journeys have carried her to such far-flung locations as Borneo in Maritime Southeast Asia and Botswana in southern Africa. Traub's most recent trek was to Tanzania. Many of the paintings from this current exhibit grew from graphite and charcoal studies that were done on that trip. One of these is Young Vervet Monkey Eating a Baobab Fruit. The initial drawings for this painting were done after a chance encounter with a wild vervet monkey on Traub's return from the Ngoron­goro Crater. Some of the animals depicted by Traub are heritage and rescue animals she has encountered through nature refuges and rehabilitators. The figures depicted in Traub's paintings represent the people that care for and fight to protect the rights of the creatures she loves. They are perhaps intended as allegorical representations of our better selves. Over the past thirty-five years Traub has generated an impressive body of work that places her squarely within the pantheon of such great animaliers as Snijders, Landseer and Bonheur, artists that wielded a nearly magical ability to imbue their subjects with both vital and tameless animal spirit. As you browse the exhibition, I think you will as well agree that Patricia Traub is a masterful practitioner of that most rare and wondrous variety of painterly alchemy.

-- Peter Risser