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.