{GEO}GRAPHICAL ANIMAL PORTRAITS explores how animal portraits shed light on diverse cultural ecologies.

R. J. Kern's vision is to bridge the gap between art and geography. He is interested in how we see animals in a place, how we shape that place, and how it shapes us. Landscapes are not around us; they are part of us. Place is significant, as the physical environment influences our identity and values. Kern strongly believe place shapes society. Particular places are not just an external world we map in geographical space, but a continual process of people interacting with the environment and vice versa.

Searching among countless roaming sheep and goats grazing in fields, Kern wonders what they might say if they could speak. Would they showcase national pride in their landscape and heritage? Or merely display irritation by recent workplace policy changes?

Animal portraits were created in his family’s heritage roots of Ireland, Norway, and Iceland. He lets the viewer decide between the humorous outtake, the epic gaze, and the graceful moment. While his compositions are inspired by landscape paintings from 1850, he has nicked Rembrandt's light and brought it outside the studio. His portraits are not focused on the exotic. Rather, Kern re-direct to otherwise "artistically neglected" groups of grazing animals which seam to climb impossible slopes with grace.