Drawing E. obsoleta

Whetstone, who studied zoology before pursuing his MFA in photography, uses the camera to explore the tangled connections between humanity, nature, and masculinity in the context of the American South. This video, shot in the dense woods of North Carolina, shows the artist wrangling a black rat snake (or E. obsoleta, its Latin name) in an attempt to use the creature’s body to draw the landscape in which it lives. Blackened with ash from a campfire, Whetstone’s hand repeatedly prods the writhing serpent with a rod, creating fluid forms against the bright white of a plastic tray. As the artist attempts to draw, the untamed creature spontaneously resists, playing out a timeless struggle between animal and human, nature and culture, hand and line, creation and destruction. Fading and flickering like an old cinema reel, the video plays in a perpetual loop that suggests the ancient symbol of the ourobouros—a serpent eating its own tail.