ZOE SCHEIN ARTIST STATEMENT:

My work routinely draws on the visual motif of the skeleton, and while these pieces certainly have a morbid sense of humor, I have never thought of naked bones exclusively or necessarily as symbols of death. After all, as a 7-year-old student once told me, “We all have a skeleton inside us.” To me, skeletons are both stunning evidence of nature’s divinity and objects that are commonplace to the point of mundane. Creating carefully, often tediously detailed images of them feels like it honors both sides.
At the same time as they provide an outlet for my exuberant curiosity with the natural world, these pieces also mimic, in their own way, how that world is shaped. For me, the act of hand- drawing multiply repeating objects evokes a central principle of evolution: that even careful copies produce great variation. The process of creating these intimately detailed images thus allows me small contact with immense natural forces—forces that are both formidable and sacred.