This painting confronts the ecological degradation and species loss that followed European colonization of California’s landscapes.

Once among the most biodiverse regions on Earth, California has been profoundly altered by overgrazing from introduced livestock, competition with invasive plants, drought, large-scale tree removal, and fire suppression. Invasive species have severely compromised ecosystem health, reducing biodiversity, displacing native plants and animals, and pushing endangered species to the brink. The introduction of sheep, in particular, led to extreme topsoil erosion, leaving lasting scars on the foothills of the Sierra Nevada.

The composition memorializes species displaced or diminished in these transformed habitats. A porcupine hovers at the entrance of its burrow, now rare in areas where it once thrived. A juvenile grizzly bear skull lies buried beneath layers of eroded soil. Declining populations of the limestone and Mount Lyell salamanders climb among rare, unfurling wildflowers. A Sierra garter snake stalks the critically endangered mountain yellow-legged frog, once the most abundant frog in the Sierra Nevada. Grasshopper sparrows, horned larks, and loggerhead shrikes flutter near the roots of a severed tree. At the top, a lamb perches on a cut trunk, listening to the willow flycatcher’s fading song—a quiet elegy for what has been lost.