Animalia Rarissima is a series of small carved and painted wood monuments of animals selected from the Department of Endangered Species (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) list of 1,072 animals.

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As a sculptor, I'm drawn to the infinite possibility and delightful variety in animal forms, in particular the diverse beauty of endangered and threatened animal species. Since rare animals are not a part of my daily environment, I have been forced to extrapolate many aspects of their form and personality, like early naturalists who used hearsay, conjecture, and imagination to create the first illustrated books of natural history in the 16th century. It is the loving attentiveness of natural history illustrations, from Konrad Gesner to John James Audubon, that I find compelling.  I also studied and drew from specimens at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. 

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My sculptures celebrate the beauty of animals but also, like Nancy Grave's sculptures of camels and Walton Ford's paintings of extinct birds, examine the role that these diminished species have in a contemporary human world that is divorced from direct daily interaction with wildlife and the natural world. My ultimate goal in this series of monuments is to ponder the possible permanent destruction of these species as well as the potential for meaning and mythology.

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For more info: https://www.missioncreep.com/hagen/animalia/index.htm

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