Jessica Kovan
A Benzie County, Michigan resident, Jessica T. Kovan enjoys combining her love of painting with her love of teaching and nature. She is a mixed media artist, environmentalist, educator, and most recently, orchardist. She aims to create conversations to foster both collective and personal understanding.
Her art is characterized as thoughtful, storytelling, and layered. Drawing inspiration from the world around her, she explores the intersection of art, nature, the environment, and human decision-making. Her work is personal, expressive, and focused on visualizing the spirit of the times.
About Me
We Have
Work To Do
Artwork
Artist Statement
In the '90s, I was a Program Director leading the Groundwater Education in Michigan (GEM) Program within Agriculture programming at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. It expanded my already deep interest in water and the vital role it plays in our Earth's ecosystems. My painting, fully created from reused cardboard, titled "We Have Work To Do." is a statement about botulism in the Great Lakes (due to zebra mussels and warming waters) that is killing our shore birds.
"Avian botulism has killed over 100,000 birds in the Great Lakes since 1999, including loons, ducks, gulls, cormorants, and piping plovers. The lakes have been warming and clearer water caused by invasive mussels provides more sunlight, allowing botulism toxin-producing bacteria to thrive. The ecosystem is in upheaval and shore birds are paying the price."
"We Have Work To Do" was part of a larger exhibit called Part of “The Birds Are Watching” exhibit.
In her GAAC Lobby Gallery exhibit, The Birds Are Watching, Jessica Kovan “asks viewers to pay attention from the vantage point of local bird species, in hopes of establishing a sense of interconnectedness between all beings. As birds become threatened, endangered, and disappear altogether, do we notice? Do we recognize our role in these changes?”
GO DEEPER: In a recorded conversation, Jessica Kovan talks about how her life and her artmaking are all of a piece, how she translates the world she observes through her creative work, and what – exactly – it is the birds are watching. Watch it here.
