"In this new body of paintings, I continue to invite viewers into otherworldly, intimate scenes where I explore and reflect on wonderous moments where humans connect closely with animals.

The title of the exhibition is derived from a song, Animal Tracks, by female American folk trio, Mountain Man. The song conjures nostalgic images of youthful summer expeditions following the tracks of small animals and one’s intuition.

Like those childhood adventures, my process of painting is also intuitive. I add and subtract layers of oil and wax, the images take shape and develop over time. During this embodied process, I’m thinking about ideas that emerge through music and through themes I’ve been mulling over for some time, inspired by documentaries, books and art history.

In this series, I explore the notion of tracks as impressions left behind. Tracks as shapes cast in soil as evidence that something has walked this way and created a path - Bees leave honey that drips from the branches of ancient trees. A nest is left behind by a bird who migrates. And I think about Pieter Bruegel, whose iconic 16th century painting of hunters and their dogs whose tracks made marks in the snow.

The paintings are tracks in their own right; my own impressions left on linen. Marks that are permanent or which are partially hidden by those laid over them, which evolve to become the finished painting."

Stephen Pleban, 2026