![](https://www.cpr.org/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=75,format=auto/https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/05/studio-1.jpg)
Denver artist Kevin Sloan puts a twist on the historic work of famed naturalist John James Audubon. A new exhibit at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center features Sloan’s work and rarely seen images from the center's collection of Audubon engravings.
![Photo: Kevin Sloan](https://www.cpr.org/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=75,format=auto/https://wp-cpr.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2019/06/kevin_sloan-1.jpg)
At the entrance to the exhibit, Audubon’s Sandhill Crane hangs near Sloan’s interpretation of the same bird. In Sloan’s huge seven-by-five foot acrylic painting, a sandhill crane holds a swirl of carnival admission tickets in it’s beak. The tickets threaten to ensnare the creature.
Other works by Sloan overlay a porcelain-like pattern on a bird to convey the idea of fragility. In another, a bird stands atop a house of cards to represent a perilous balance in nature.
Sloan combines realism and fantasy to create allegory and story and to draw the viewer into a visual dialogue about nature and the manmade world.
“A Naturalist & an Artist: John James Audubon & Kevin Sloan” is on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center through May 31.