On my first day at the Evanston Art Center, I wandered through the ground level gallery
space, observing the various pieces created by faculty members. I enjoyed a sense of
connection with a variety of the exhibited works, but what spoke to me the most was a large
work in colored pencil by Elizabeth Wilson entitled ‘Portrait of a Tiger’. Placed strikingly against
a matte black background, the cat stands poised, confident, and thoughtful. His striking green
and yellow eyes met mine directly, and I became aware of a subtle physiological response that
stirred inside me.
The tiger is, historically, a natural predator. A day in which you confront the beast in the
wild could, very well, be your last. But the fear associated with this danger feels so distant in the
world in which we reside. Most of us no longer live with daily awareness of threats to our
physical survival. Instead, our fears have turned inward in quieter ways. We fear judgement,
misperception, and stagnation, to name a few.
Looking into the eyes of Wilson’s tiger felt grounding in an unexpected way. Gazing into
the eyes of what we once feared, as a species, is one way in which we can practice the
remembrance of who we are and where we came from. It is a way in which we can put our
contemporary experiences and manifestations of fear into a broader historical context. In doing
so, we can begin to think critically about the fears that so often control aspects of our lives.
For me, this encounter felt like an unexpected beginning. On my first day at EAC, the art
didn’t introduce itself with context or explanations. It simply looked back at me, and asked me to
do the same.
