Sightings
How does contemporary art speak to our
conscience and values?
Excerpted from Yellowstonian, August 23, 2026
Observing the movements of both avian and terrestrial wildlife migrations, and hoping to help sensitize viewers to the often-invisible essence of animal movements, Bozeman artist Catherine Courtenaye dwells at the intersection between painterly abstraction and the emerging revelations of science to create a personally expressive narrative.
The series “Redrawn Topographies: Human and Wild Imprints on the Land” intends to seduce viewers into considering how the New West—erected on models of Cartesian order and geometric planning—often is at odds with the transcendent currents of Nature’s larger superstructure. When we try to impose our will to tame or control forces moving forward since time immemorial, we are unraveling the very essence of the planet.
Courtenaye isn’t interested in literal representation of subject matter or in achieving exactitude in the way that we read migration cartography (such as that created by the Wyoming Migration Initiative and USGS), which is based on GPS coordinates from radio-collared elk, mule deer, pronghorn, and even grizzly bears. Nor does her work fit into the genre of classic naturalistic illustration or traditional wildlife art in which animals are often replicated, as if interpreted through photographs.
Gaining inspiration from the pulse of wild migration, Courtenaye wants to open our eyes, especially those of younger urban dwellers removed from daily contact with truly wild country, to the electric sparks of life inhabiting our part of the West. And, she wants us to reflect on that spirit, to see how nature’s rhythms and harmonies are being displaced in the human-dominated age of the Anthropocene.
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