Erin Whitten Crysdale

I am a narrative painter. I approach each canvas with the expectation that a story exists and will come through in the end. In preparation for this show I contemplated themes relating to endangerment. I wanted to paint the quiet story of loss through ambivalence, and how things disappear slowly when we aren’t paying attention. The figures/creatures that walk through these paintings express a kind of inner working of the mind; joy and sorrow in equal parts. When we look around the world, we are losing things like democracy, community, kindness, and inner peace. Painting endangered animals is a way to illicit a heart response, a bridge to open the viewer up to my story of the internal world of these characters. We don’t wish these things to vanish but they do. So I honour them by painting the quiet, gentle natured giraffe, the missing multitudes of giant hares, the soaring urban nighthawks in a magic pink city, the nostalgic sheep in pastures that will give ways to highways.  I paint outer worlds of flat decorative landscapes to express the inner workings of the mind. At first glance you might feel contrasting emotions but they soon become complimentary; Isolation and companionship, peace and sorrow, contemplation and confusion. All the creatures in my work travel like the words on a page from left to right. As if just beyond the canvas is the thing they’ve been heading to or looking for. 2025