Click image to view the series.

Click image to view the series.

I was raised in rural Northwestern Pennsylvania, surrounded by the untamed beauty of nature and wildlife. St. Mary’s was famous for its hunting; and at eight years old, I witnessed the horror of a freshly killed deer – stomach split and dripping blood – hanging from the neighbor’s clothesline in the dead chill of winter. The helplessness of animals against the power of man has haunted me from a very early age and I believe that my mission in life is to be a staunch defender of all animals, through the power of my art.

My series of work - The Tortured Souls - depicts the barbaric world of animal testing; and focuses on the unwilling animal subjects who suffer in the name of science. Every year, millions upon millions of animals are dissected, infected, injected, gassed, burned and blinded in hidden laboratories throughout the world. Still more animals are used to test the safety of cosmetics, household cleansers and other consumer products. These innocent primates, dogs, cats, rabbits and rodents are used against their will as research subjects in a multitude of experiments that would be considered barbaric were they not conducted in the name of science. The Tortured Souls examines the inherent ethical conflicts that arise by forcing these species that once lived in freedom to die for dubious causes of mankind. This body of work is based on a merging of my photographs into dreamlike, digital collages output as large-scale giclee prints.