Birds are sensitive indicators to the effects of environmental change which makes them useful for identifying ecosystem health. I have been painting bird nests sitting on ceramic plates to talk about the way we are consuming our planet. Working from historical ceramic designs I alter the original composition to incorporate the narratives and highlight the extinction of certain bird species.

Our disposable consumer culture is contributing to our enviromental worries and whilst researching ceramics I came across the Japanese art of Kintsugi that celebrates repair over replace. Mending broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold or silver to highlight the breakage treats the breakage and repair as part of the object's history and dignity, and is viewed as beautiful in look and theory. Breaking a plate and glueing it back together gives me an accidental ready made drawing of broken lines to work around and within. I can then represent this object through the luscious application of paint, color and pattern in the readymade shapes, blurring the lines between realism and abstraction, Fine Art and Applied Art.

Recently I have been painting landscapes reflected in disco mirror balls to call upon our fracturing landscape whilst we continue to “Party on” as our planets ecosystem slowly unravels because of our daily lives.



 

Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush ( You should know me better than that)
oil on wood panel, 22 x 29", 2017
Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush (Killer buildings)
oil on canvas, 56 x 56", 2017
Party on
oil on canvas, 65" Tondo, 2017
Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush (1.9.1914)
oil on linen, 54 x 71", 2017
Last Dance
oil on wood panel, 28", 2018
Beak, Claw, Hand, Brush (Everything now)
oil on canvas, 22" Tondo, 2017
If you see me
oil on wood panel, 10" Tondo, 2017
Just be good to me
oil on wood panel, 6" Tondo, 2017
Hurt so good
oil on wood panel, 6" Tondo, 2017
Heart of glass
oil on canvas, 34" Tondo, 2018
A little life
oil on canvas, 45" Tondo, 2017
Temperamental
oil on canvas, 36", 2017
Before today
oil on canvas, 36", 2017
Marc Straus Gallery NYC 2018