Catherine Bivens
Bigby “The Sheriff” Kehl
This work came from a place of profound love, and a wish to honor a loved one in both a respectful and meaningful way. Bigby Kehl passed away in July of 2025, and in honor and celebration of his life I wanted to do something special for my partner and his family. Throughout the time working on this piece I developed a wonderful closeness with Bigby’s drawing, much like the one we shared during his life.
Materials: graphite, paper.
Hand of God, Hands of Man
The idea behind my project began as a focus on the gut-wrenching duty by the doctors and those in the hospitals following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This project evolved to look through a wider lens of multiple perspectives of nuclear birth, and I wanted to represent the emergence of the nuclear era through the human hand.
This work is cyclical in some ways, a wheel turning in time. The hands depicted have character, they tell their own stories of choices, and circumstances. As a result of this, all the hands are represented on an even plane. There are inherent separations from hand to hand, but ultimately they aim to make a direct connection to the humanity in each viewer.
All hands depicted in this piece were referenced from real people involved with and impacted by the first use of nuclear weaponry against humankind.
Materials: Acrylic paint, artist board.
Read more about this series of paintings here.
©2025 Catherine Bivens