“Oracular Creatures And Arcane Spaces”: Shadowy Animals Infiltrate Desolate Spaces In Illustrations y Jenna Barton

Jenna Barton is an American illustrator and designer, who is passionate about design, animal forms, and the liminal spaces between our own. She wants to combine watercolor and digital processing in order to create mysterious anthropomorphic scenes of dogs, foxes, deer and other four-legged beings. These strangely rendered creatures often have blank glowing eyes. This fact may suggest the animal is possessed or hiding a deep inner world.

In anthropology, liminality is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rites. During a rite’s liminal stage, participants “stand at the threshold” between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which the rite establishes.

The artist is based in Utah, which translates into her work through broad sweeping pastures and farmland illuminated by twilight. These settings add to the heightened tension presented in the animals’ demeanor, while providing a fitting background for her album art and custom tattoos.

More: Jenna Barton, Instagram h/t: colossal