Andrea Guzzetta - Glass Houses (The Doghouse Gallery)

Andrea Guzzetta is an LA-based artist obsessed with the harmonious relationship between love and death. She grew up barefoot in a remote part of the midwest picking berries for breakfast and spending summers laying in the grass listening to grasshoppers and watching for deer. Long enchanted by the beauty of nature, she has extensive bone, feather, and pressed flower collections from her youth and subsequent travels. 

Heavily influenced by Zoobooks, Lisa Frank, Polly Pocket and Littlest Pet Shop with a sprinkling of early childhood trauma, her work focuses on cultivating perfect little worlds for her animal families full of tranquil abundance even while the promise of eventual mortality encompasses each scene. Although each piece is, at its core, a reminder of mortality, the cheery palette reflects the artist’s opinions that all is as it should be, that the promise of death is integral to the nature of life.

GLASS HOUSES

In her latest collection, Glass Houses, Guzzetta focuses entirely on endangered species. In the centerpiece, Mutually Assured, several endangered species of the Amazon are encapsulated within the crystalline palace of a human skull. This piece is a reminder that the fate of humanity is intertwined with the fates of all animal life. 

The other skulls, housing endangered animals of the same species, reflect how delicate the continuation of their species is. The single outlier, a group of native Everglades animals resting on the backs of manatees, represent a more hopeful scene - how human efforts can help declining animal populations as we’ve seen manatee populations increase in the last few years. 

Despite all the skulls, Guzzetta’s message is a hopeful one - that the fragile beauty of the world can be preserved with the right effort.