Excerpt from curator Ari M. Myers essay which can be viewed in full here

” Imagining that the creatures inhabiting America’s wilderness could be storytellers through objects and images the way that humans can, these objects portray the natural world with a tender perspective, and with mystical and legendary qualities. The moments DeFeo chooses to portray are sacred and primordial, as if they are the cultural documents of forest dwellers. These scenes don’t involve humankind, and have been taking place long before we existed or were paying attention. DeFeo reminds us that waterfalls don’t turn off at night. Elk lock antlers without camera crews around to capture them. Sometimes, a wolf will be struck by a rainbow hanging in the mist over a gorge and will stop to marvel at his surroundings. “