This series of miniature dioramas by Alison Neville visualizes “select scenes from our long relationship with our fellow and sometimes not-so-fellow fauna,” says the artist. “Each one represents a situation based on real events researched through online media sources. Many are truly atrocities and some are subtly horrible.”

“Parachuting Beavers” refers to an incident in Idaho in the 1940s, when wildlife management teams tried to manage wildlife populations by capturing beavers from one area and parachuting them into another. P.U.T.I.N. (Pigeons, United To Interfere Now) is a radical group that released the MAGA-hat wearing pigeons in Las Vegas in 2020—as a protest against the 2020 Democratic debate and in favor of Donald Trump.

On “Last Tasmanian Tiger,” Geoff Wichert wrote in a recent review that “the work’s appeal lies in its ability to become so much larger in the mind than its physical size, an effect largely due to the amount of effort required just to see it. Its small size, intricate detail, and even the presence of a glass dome usually covering it (though sometimes removed for the photographer) require considerable movement on the part of the viewer to fully apprehend it. The effort to see it parallels the effort required to grasp what befell the Tasmanian Tiger, along with so many other living things. A work of art brings the viewer closer, even inside the event, but paradoxically, in the same encounter, precisely reconstructs its remoteness in time and place. Its ability to do both is what makes the original so compelling.”

Neville graduated magna cum laude in 2016 with a Bachelor’s of Fine Art from Weber State University. She lives in Bountiful, Utah, and works at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art as the K-12 Education Manager.

You can listen to Neville talk about the development of her diorama work in this video, recorded as part of the 2020 35×35 exhibition:

READ MORE ABOUT THE ARTIST AND VIEW MORE OF HER WORK

Artists of Utah’s 35×35, Finch Lane Gallery, Salt Lake City, through Feb. 23

15 Bytes

UTAH’S ART MAGAZINE SINCE 2001, 15 Bytes is published by Artists of Utah, a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.