Diaspora, Tom Knechtel

Three distinct species of bat ride a raft along a cresting wave. Where do you think they are traveling and why? Luminous intertwining ribbons that resemble DNA strands stream from the vesper bat’s mouth toward a flourishing cycle of sea life and death. Among the darkest depths, ghostly inscriptions for bat in French, Italian, and German surround a skeletal depiction. The painting integrates human knowledge of biological ecosystems with the magical wonders of the natural world.

Additional label content:
Teeming marine life occupy the lower half of the painting and present scenes of lifecycles. Some are more identifiable species, such as a seahorse (Genus Hippocampus) and eel (Order Anguilliformes), while others display elements that resemble certain fish. Seahorse eggs deposited in the male’s pouch and the leptocephalus larval stages of the eel, represented by the long and clear tiny “fishes” swimming across the center of the painting, suggest a theme of reproduction and mating. This is juxtaposed to the death and decomposition indicated by the bat skeleton that anchors the bottom of the scene.

Tom Knechtel’s mysterious painting combines biology and fantasy, and perhaps offers a perspective onto the biological theme of dispersal and seemingly fantastical ideas of “rafting.” Dispersal is an important concept in biology about the ways animals migrate across continents. Rafting is a form of dispersal in which animals move across oceans on vegetation, other creatures, or some sort of object.