JIM EPPLER
Natural Habitats
Jim Eppler is a polymath, proficient in wildlife painting and sculpture, portraiture and music. His work is at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Frederik Meijer Gardens and the Booth Western Art Museum. His portraits are at the at the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and he has been commissioned by MCA Records, Mercury Records and Chappell Music.
He is most at home in the outdoors where he has observed and sketched since he was a boy in West Texas. In addition to observing and sketching, he photographs animals in their natural habit as well as the nuances of the habitat. He has developed a reverence and respect for wildlife that manifests in his intimate portraits of animals in bronze.
Eppler quotes the naturalist Henry Beston who also spent countless hours observing but recording in words. Beston wrote, “In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.”
Eppler and Beston come close to hearing what most of us can’t hear and, in their work, try to put us more in touch.
In an exhibition of his latest work at Manitou Galleries on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, New Mexico, running August 17 through September 8, is a portrait of a raven, Raven XI D (Arrowhead). He and his wife were photographing in Yellowstone when they began to observe the abundant ravens. He studied them and studied about them. The sculpture evokes not only the subtleties of the bird’s physiognomy but also a hint of his personality. Carl Jung wrote that the raven represents our dark side or our shadow. The ancients thought of it as a sign of ill omen. Ravens are also known to be among the smartest animals and demonstrably have a playful side. All these complexities emanate from Eppler’s intricately detailed sculptures.