Carolina Parakeet Project

Artist Spotlight

Cultural de-extinction through Chantelle's practice

Chantelle Chapman’s work shows that de-extinction can begin in culture long before it appears in science. Through Parakeet Lost, she turns the Carolina Parakeet from a vanished fact into a visible presence again, using painting to restore memory, proximity, and emotional recognition. This page highlights that kind of return: not biological reanimation, but the re-entry of an extinct species into public attention.

www.chantellechapman.com @chantellechapman

Since her childhood in the North Carolina foothills of the Smoky Mountains, Chantelle Chapman has been fascinated with nature. Working in traditional gouache, her major focus as an artist is the relationship between humankind and animals. The creatures of her paintings inhabit dark voids that illuminate their significance and hint at the gaps left behind when something precious is lost from the world.

Collection Index

Artist Statement

There's an exoticism to the idea of extinction; it's often portrayed as a tragedy that happens to bizarre creatures in far-off lands, such as the thylacine or the dodo. To fight this perception, I wanted to create a series of paintings based on a lost American species. I noticed that a surprising amount of people were unfamiliar with the Carolina Parakeet. Despite being an extremely unique bird, and its ubiquity in large areas of the United States, less than a century after its official extinction the Carolina Parakeet has largely been forgotten by our culture.

Parakeet Lost seeks to keep their memory alive by highlighting various notable characteristics of these birds and their downfall, while encouraging viewers to consider other familiar backyard birds that could just as easily disappear if we make the same mistakes again.