Statement/ Artist Mission
Research on the lifeways and adaptability of native wildlife species to their environment is essential to my practice. My works represent flora and fauna, such as pollinating insects, hummingbirds, and bats as well as plants and terrestrial mammals such as predators, omnivores, and herbivores, that are native to the state of Oklahoma and surrounding regions.
As a natural science illustrator and conceptual artist, I am influenced by ecology and the biological sciences, specifically the complexities that have contributed to a drastic decline of biodiversity worldwide, namely habitat loss. A large portion of wildlife around the world are at risk of survival in an expanding human-centric world. Through my work, I aim to learn of and share the similarities wildlife have with humanity. Our species’ expansion comes with great responsibility. Having recognition and respect for organisms who live nearby is necessary to sustain both wildlife and functional habitats.
Life in reciprocity with our surrounding world is a necessity. The concept of my work is based on this and our reliance on differences among living beings that make up the natural world, such as topsoil formation from dead plant materials. If more human beings reciprocate well-being and gentleness to wildlife, there will be more room for compassion when Opossum waddles across a public space to eat ticks in the nearby forest.
BIO
Lauren Rosenfelt is a Xicanx (CHEE-kanks, SHEE) freelance, natural science illustrator and artist currently living and working in Norman, Oklahoma. She graduated from the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma in 2014 with a BFA and minor in Liberal Arts. Her work focuses on sharing the importance of native wildlife and plant species. She works with clientele ranging from private commissions to commercial and nonprofit organizations. Her public projects are displayed at “This is Place”, a small public pollinator garden and art space and habitat signage at the Norman Central library.
Lauren has worked with WildCare Oklahoma, the Myriad Botanical Gardens, the City of Norman, and has artwork on display at Scissortail Park, the Museum of Osteology, DNA Galleries, and Norman Firehouse Art Gallery. She is also an active board member for Inclusion in Art, an Oklahoma art organization dedicated to promoting ethnically, racially, and culturally diverse artists in Oklahoma’s visual arts community.
In January 2022, Lauren began her work as a plant biology master’s student at the University of Oklahoma. She studies multiple ecosystem functions relating to soil, plant, and invertebrates, primarily pollinators, with the intent to marry her artist mission and ecological research into a career focused on science communication through artistic projects and public outreach. In addition, she has worked for the Chickasaw Nation as a Sustainability Science intern and works as a graduate research assistant for the Oklahoma Biological Survey and at the South-Central Climate Adaptation Science Center.
