In 2019, a kayaker, on Highland Lake in Bridgton, Maine, found a dead bald eagle and loon chick floating on the surface. Biologists determined a loon likely attacked and killed the eagle to protect its chick, as loons are known to fiercely defend their young. This event is unusual because eagles are often the predators of loon offspring, and loons rarely kill eagles. It was determined that the Loon stabbed the eagle in the heart with its beak. Forensic measurements found that the fatal wound was very consistent of the size and shape of a loon’s bill.
As an artist who often taps into the societal zeitgeist and human representations and symbolic borrowings from the natural world, I found this event deeply allegorical, particularly in reference to present day leadership and political maneuverings. My project then, would simply be to represent the event as a work of art and let the experience of viewing the work hold the psychological, political and structural dynamics in relation to a larger societal analysis, narratives or timelines.
My multi-panel “Lament” is my most ambitious take on this theme, expanding the moment of action to a series of murals that depict imagined moments before during and after this event, as a sequential representation. My artistic process involves first folding together a stack of four pieces of traditional Chinese Xuan paper then blotting the stack with ink to produce four repeated kaleidoscopic symmetries that then are mounted to four canvas panels. Each set of four panels makes up a scene. I then render the scene with gouache watercolor, sometimes maintaining the symmetries, other times blocking them or camouflaging them within elements of the scene. All living things reflect symmetries within their bio forms and structures and by folding the paper before blotting it I can establish an array of symmetrical shapes and forms from which to locate figures and place them in the scene.
I chose the title "Lament" from a possible origin of the word “Loon” from the Norwegian word "lom," which comes from Old Norse "lōmr," potentially related to English "lament," referring to the loon's distinctive, plaintive sound. For me this is an expression of dismay, helplessness and sorrow of current times with regard to violence committed around the world against unarmed civilians, authoritarian leadership denying due process and human rights and general problems, distress and xenophobic responses to vulnerable people escaping poverty and violence around the world.
Closer to home, the historic representation of the bald eagle within our own national identity and consciousness, as a state standard, emblem and icon and endless commercial, regional and institutional representations, places an intense layering of projected meaning onto this creature as one of fear, strength and power. Considering the historic paths to equality, justice and freedom from oppression, the instincts of the defending loon as a lesser apex predator against a greater apex predator speaks to the potential of the lesser to ultimately triumph over the dominance of the greater, despite the innate advantages such a being might hold.
The ultimate conclusion of the eagle attack is tragic, with the object of prey a failed acquisition, mortally wounded itself and the greater power, itself too, defeated and destroyed. Going forward, as an artistic representation, this depiction can now deflect against and rewrite the standard tropes of dominance, oppression and power as represented by anthropomorphic and symbolic references to nature.
Kenny Cole
May 2025