In Memoriam: Honoring Animals Who Have Died in the Human Pursuit of Knowledge and Power
My artistic practice is centered around the natural world and how humans interact with their environment. I work with themes of reverence for life and its many iterations, highlighting concepts of death, rebirth, and the beauty that is to be found in the mundane. I am a printmaker who primarily works in relief and etching to create detailed compositions combining animal portraiture and botanical illustration. My current body of work for my senior thesis revolves around the forgotten animal victims of human progress, depicting the realities of their painful, often short lives to bring attention to the situations so often forgotten or unknown. My background is in human portraiture, and recently I have translated that passion into capturing the beauty and essence of all types of creatures. I bring aspects of collage and painting into my print practice through hand coloring, chine colle, and intricate cuttings of my prints. Hand coloring has become very important to bring life and vibrancy into the subjects of my prints, I enjoy playing around with various color combinations and the endless iterations that come from one matrix. This is the main joy I find within printmaking, countless possibilities can be combined into infinite compositions.
Bio
Lane Bonis graduated from the Printmaking department at The Maine College of Art & Design in Portland Maine. She plans to enroll in the Masters in Teaching program after graduation and become an art teacher in Maine. She comes from a long line of teachers and is passionate about bringing art and creativity to everyone. She works primarily in the mediums of relief and intaglio, doing medium to large-scale wood blocks and copper etching. Hand coloring and collage are also vital to her practice, bringing painting into the world of print, and creating delicate, hand-cut collages from an edition of prints.
