Darkest Before the Dawn

Jennifer Celio

It is difficult for all of us to maintain a positive outlook during the pandemic. Yet we as a global and local humanity share this daily effort to keep a focus on a better future while maneuvering the new reality. In the midst of all the hardships, everyone has witnessed people stepping up to assist and protect their fellow humans with both large and small gestures.

My work has long examined the complicated human relationship with nature. I like to construct narratives that comment on the simultaneous fragility and power of nature, and what that means for humanity as we use it to suit our desires and needs. Using juxtapositions of figurative elements, abstraction, text, and 1960s-80s graphic design, the composition seeks to start a conversation about the effects of human consumption upon ecosystems and the planet as a whole.