A Word to the Wild

A Word to the Wild is a fine art series I developed to underscore the urgent need for environmental protection and to illuminate the challenges wild animals endure in an increasingly fragile ecosystem. Drawing on the concept of “visual language,” each piece employs text not merely as a narrative element, but as the very building blocks of the imagery itself—transforming written words into forms that evoke fur, feathers, foliage, and the contours of endangered species.

My process began with extensive sketching, exploring how individual words—names of animals, habitat descriptors, or calls to conservation—could form recognizable silhouettes when arranged strategically. Once the compositions were finalized on paper, I translated these sketches into a tactile, multi-layered collage using gouache (an opaque watercolor medium) applied to heavyweight art paper. I divided the surface into a grid of white and black squares, meticulously painting each square to achieve a strong contrast that emphasizes both text and negative space.

With the painted grid complete, I used an X-Acto knife to carefully cut away each square according to my design. These cut-outs were then painstakingly reassembled and glued in place, layering letterforms over one another to build up the shapes I had originally envisioned. The result is a dynamic interplay of positive and negative, where words literally form the bodies of animals on the page—encouraging viewers to read and see simultaneously.

By using stark black-and-white contrast and a collage technique, the series conveys dualities: presence and absence, visibility and erasure, life and loss. In A Word to the Wild, the viewer is invited to consider how our written or spoken commitments to conservation translate into tangible action—because words alone, without follow-through, cannot save a species. Each cut-and-glued square becomes a small monument to both the beauty and vulnerability of wildlife, and an appeal to protect the natural world before more habitats—and the animals within them—are silenced forever.