collecting parts

1/27/2016

The Bower Birds


STROKE Art Show 2015 - Munich Germany
It was a great pleasure to be invited to show work at this exhibition/art fair.
Only ended up having a few weeks to prep for the event so decided to show a range of sketches, paintings, type and digital illustrations.

I was worked alongside 3 other artists from Germany and the Canaries to produce a body of work loosely based around a collaborative tie- using ONLY the colour blue

This was slightly unnerving for me as i generally work in black and white- so with limited time i decided to look for inspiration from my usual places of interest - biology,  geology,  nature, psychology ,  quotes, music and generally anything that came to mind whilst looking in these places

I had been reading a book called 'The Survival of The Beautiful' about Darwin's second theory of evolution. He realised there was another reason for evolution in species and how in some species the female didn't always choose the strongest fittest most aggressive male but were choosing by beauty and attraction. Think of the peacock and its incredibly complex decorative tail . The females chose their mate by the beauty of their tails and over time they developed to be not all that agile, easy to spot by prey and not particularly strong - not for any other purpose then to attract a mate. It brought me to the curious bower birds , in particular one type - the satin bowerbird who builds complex artistic sculptures and collects only blue items to impress his gal.

i created a series of illustrations to be very different in subject but tied together about the courting process, anxieties about love,sharing, fear of attachment, fear of rejection, loneliness and how we can loose ourselves to the perpetual human process of not wanting to be alone.