Evelyn’s Dragon Lizard, honors Evelyn Nesbitt (1884/85-1967), an artist’s model and performer. Driscoll associates the arrangement of viola, liriope, and lamb’s ear with “how the Frilled Dragon Lizard flares its neck in response to predators”. Nesbitt was repeatedly raped by the architect Stanford White and the frame for the painting is one that White created. As such, the artist notes, White compositionally holds the bristling botanical evocation of Nesbitt captive.

-Tanja L. Jones, Ph.D., Department of Art and Art History, The University of Alabama