2026

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL

RESILIENCE

EXHIBITION

KAREN BUTTWINICK

KAREN BUTTWINICK

(Albany, CA)

Against All Odds

encaustic, photographic imagery, pastel on cradled panel, 12 x 12 x 1.5 inches

$550 + $38.50 tax + $45 shipping fee  =

$633.50 Total Price

Artist Statement:

In the aftermath of the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles, CA, the landscape told a story of simultaneous devastation and defiance. Against All Odds bears witness to that story.

Charred palm trees stand against a distant Pacific horizon, battered, blackened, but rooted. Before them, the earth itself is cracked and parched, testament to the drought that fed the flames. A white brick structure, gutted by fire, rises from the ash. And yet from that cracked earth, orange poppies bloom. California’s state flower, tough, brilliant, impossible to suppress, pushing through devastation toward the sun. From the burnt structure, an American flag rises, its edge charred but its form intact. Damaged and still flying.

The flag carries a double truth. It speaks of resilience: the enduring promise that communities rebuild, that what matters survives. But its charred edges also ask an honest question: what does it mean to fly a flag over scorched earth, in a nation still reckoning with its relationship to the land, the climate, and its most vulnerable communities? Resilience, this image suggests, requires both hope and accountability.

Against All Odds is a meditation on the optimism that emerges not despite devastation but because of it, the stubborn, beautiful refusal of life to yield, even when the odds say otherwise.

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