My aesthetic of 'deadly beauty' derives from an awareness of the lovely symmetries and imperfections of natural forms, an acknowledgement of the special qualities that living things have developed by adaptation over time, and a celebration the resilience and uniqueness of the inhabitants of this planet.

In these drawings and paintings, I offer meditation on the delicate interrelationship that humans and other life forms share. I am particularly interested in creating awareness of human life in balance with other living things and our shared environment.

Often these images are rendered in carbon-based materials, like charcoal, ink, and oil, reflecting the carboniferous origins of life on earth. The botanical drawings and paintings are expressed in the forming and becoming of plant forms, yet they also are in fragmentation or decay. The landscape pieces are impressions of ecosystems, marked by the influence of human industry and activity and also document the temporal nature of life on earth.

Our civilization relies upon a finite supply of carbon-based fuels, and whether liquid (oil), solid (coal) or gas (gas), that material was millions of years in the making. We extract these "resources" from mountaintop to sea bottom, bringing up (and burning up) the accumulated masses of plant life from millennia past.

Our grandchildren's children will likely inherit an earth bereft of this legacy of accessible and abundant hydrocarbons to support their lives, and a significant amount of adaptation and resourcefulness may be necessary for the comfort, if not survival, of our species.

The drawings of Gulf Coast flora- these "other living things," are shadow images, embodying the carbon-based life forms that strive to live now- nurtured by, or in spite of, the efforts and actions of humankind.

- Brian Borrello, 2010