Oakland Museum Update - Part 2

This is 1 of 2 wall installations I painted for the Oakland Museum of California. The wall will be displayed in their Natural Sciences Gallery as a part of OMCA's annual Dia De Los Muertos exhibition. The curator, Eduardo Pineda was interested in creating a show that put Dia De Los Muertos in the context of natural sciences and California. This image is in honor of the California state Grizzly bear. The image was inspired by Nahuales which is the belief in some Mexican traditions that everyone is born with a spirit of an animal who is responsible for protecting and guiding us. In this case I was thinking of the Grizzly as a Nahual for our state. Unfortunately we've killed off all of them in the state of California. 

Oakland Museum Update

This is part 1 of 2 walls I am painting for the Oakland Museum of California. The walls are for their annual Dia De Los Muertos exhibit which opens this fall. I had to get an early start on it because they requested to use it to promote the show. The title of this piece is Tree of Life and Death. It's inspired by Life Cycles as defined in science and a modern interpretation of pre-conquest, Dia De Los Muertos and buddhist images. Life Cycles basically apply to all things living and are characterized by change, life itself, growth and death. The tree motif is a reference to the civic logo of Oakland. Together with the curator of the exhibit Eduardo Pineda, I wanted to connect natural sciences to Dia De Los Muertos, and I feel we accomplished that in this piece. I will post more updates as soon as the piece is installed at OMCA. Thanks for viewing!