Bio:

Erik Fremstad is a conservation artist who lives in Minnesota. The focus of his latest project Unnatural Selection (still in progress) tells the history of the persecution of wildlife in North America as the land began to be colonized. Before beginning each painting, Fremstad spends months researching the history of each animal to ensure that every detail is accurate. From a distance, the paintings in Fremstad's Unnatural Selection project show the texture and character of beautiful, majestic animals. But up close the handwritten archival pen reveals a different story: how roughly 30 million bison, 2 million wolves, and 50,000 grizzly bears were slaughtered as settlers moved across the land.

Statement:

Humanity’s neglect of nature's balance has been centuries in the making, and now more than ever we are seeing the effects of that neglect. We have evolved to not only kill wildlife and destroy nature with guns and traps, but now it is being done through our way of life: pollution, habitat loss, climate change, etc. I want to continue on the legacy of conservationists before me. The goals of the Unnatural Selection project are to educate, inspire, and give back to wildlife and conservation efforts.

www.erikfremstad.com