I’m riffing on an evergreen idea lifted from ancient Greek mythology. How did this theme arrive to me you ask? Good question.
GERM OF AN IDEA
I was painting and drawing animals in rural Illinois USA: beloved dog companions, rescue horses, cheetahs from the Scovill zoo, bunny rabbits, a variety of birds, lord-of-the-manor Cats. Family members, immediate, extended and honorific. Toy balls morphed into otherworldly orbs that began appearing in many compositions teasing celestial and terrestrial connections.
Bitt, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 10” x 8”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis (Collection of Sarah Bartusch, South Carolina)
2025 happened. It’s happeniiiinnnng
The news stories infiltrated my thinking.
RESEARCH
Meanwhile in 2024, researching the cheetah, I had begun to lightly investigate animals in folk tales and symbolism of animals… which lead to Greek mythology, and I don’t really remember why I latched onto the chimera. But it simmered in the back of my mind for awhile. Lets say the fantastical hybrid visuals just resonated.
Mafdet stardust 2, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 36”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis
Other influences, infiltrations from memory, were dystopian TV, such as “the walking dead”, and Gothic horror authors, such as Mary Shelley who in fact used the term chimera in her descriptions of Frankenstein’s unnatural creative endeavors. The impact on me was not from the grotesquery, per se, but the human coping mechanisms good and bad.
And then of course there are those 2025 politics that started the whole theme. How “the others” are turned into monsters and distractions by monsters in disguise.
THE PROCESS
Call it therapy, call it commentary, call it synthesis, call it observation, or reportage, call it amusement. The mix up of imagery, the reassembly, just seems necessary.
When I’m immersed in making, the intensity of the subject, the emotional significance, the heaviness, diffuses and lifts into curiosity and focus.
THE FIRST ITERATIONS
The first related drawings, that actually came before the Chimera paintings, took shape from animals related to policies and to individuals from the Trump administration. These were not assembled from parts, but normal earthly animals. The first two came specifically from the tariffs on the remote Heard and McDonald islands, inhabited by penguins, and the past antics of Kristi Noem (newly named as secretary of Homeland Security).
eclipse 2, under the blood red moon 2025 CE, 2025, acrylic paint pens on paper, 48” x 36”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis
NEXT FULLY CHIMERA
The first chimera paintings were developed specifically with animals associated with Rfk jr. (named US secretary of health in February 2025). It was just so appropriate, his fascination with studying dead things, parts of dead things, and his pet birds. With sooo many different animals, a chimera, or more, had to be assembled. And in the mean time there were upticks of diseases and other disasters so each creature leaves a path of destruction.
Coronovus, a sharp eyed spreader, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 24×48”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis
(Don’t get me wrong, living in the countryside, being an artist and a collector, I too am drawn to scavenge the abundance of fascinating sculls and antlers, and shells and bones. But I can’t say I have ever cut off fresh fleshy parts … to “study later”.)
The range of subjects has expanded to draw from animal like stories related to anyone, or action, in the concurrent US administration… alligator Alcatraz, grab them by the…, peacocking officials etc.
There seems an unlimited supply of inspiration, of destruction, and so many I haven’t gotten to yet.
Vermpavnaj, a covetous, vainglorious shyster, acrylic on canvas, 16X20”, Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis
AN EXHIBITION
Note: many of these works seen, for the first time in person in a gallery, in
The likes of which no one has ever seen before ! Elizabeth Lisa Petrulis,
Waldron Arts Center, Bloomington, IN,
Education Gallery,
November 6-20, 2026
For more check out the portfolios of Chimera and Slow Draw Rounds-Drawings. Stay tuned more images will be coming.