{"id":35401,"title":"Will Birds Fly?","description":"Reflections, predictions and hopes for 2024...","content":"

\"8nbgttrmryplbia5t5znmtubv6z1axqnj6deumrdz8ohh3nx.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"Post the enforced festive season I tend to fall hard into an emotional slump, I expect many of us do. It is perhaps the turn of the seasons. The dark midwinter slowly changes to the gradual unfurling of longer days, a promise of spring still away in the distance. As a new year begins I naturally reflect on what has been, what have I achieved, where have I failed? What works, and what doesn\u2019t? This period of self reflection is I believe a healthy way of keeping track of my art practice and life.\u00a0<\/p>

\"ekv8e1utvchyxgg1hefoczyjemvdzk4102d59gzx6jzyb0ut.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"Part of this process seems to have become an annual habit of examining my face, exploring the wear and tear of a year etched. As an artist who uses their face as a tool I choose to recapture it, as I have here. I shave and scrub, explore new ways of painting and shaping, with the year ahead looming, this mask will have to see me through. Future projects will rely on it. I am of course blessed with some abilities to make the most of the face I have, make-up and photo-editing help me enhance my fading \u2018beauty\u2019. A superficial focus, something we all wrestle with as the years flop flaccidly onto the front of our heads.<\/p>

\"8ymtbs1ocjri5cbnsp3nzhvvujh6wdnuaiidxmvfsel6szcf.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"As an artist and human I reflect on why I do what I do. I illustrate the beauty of birds and contrast and compare the bird to my own human face and body, I adorn this aging pile of fat, gristle, bone and muscle with accoutrements, I make props and style outfits to echo the birds I love. I believe I am contrasting the artifice and superficiality of make-up, the function of fashion, the social constructs of identity, sexuality and gender with the pure unselfconsciousness of nature. Birds are not aware of how they look, they simpler are, my mission is to honour and highlight their quirks and idiosyncrasies and celebrate their complete disregard for us, the human observer.<\/p>

\"d6ul3nzauzny5usbpih62mlq9obno9sygrz79rdz91csnxzf.png.png?w=1140&v=2\"The beauty of birds and the natural world has always been an inspiration to humans, we have strived to understand and capture nature since the beginning. Indigenous cultures lived alongside the natural world for millennia, with minimal impact. Modern science and ornithology has named and categorised the birds around us, swathes of humans examine the avian world and we continue to learn how the vast ecological jigsaw of our planet connects, despite what we have learned we have proven to be no<\/strong> ally to nature or our planet.<\/p>

\"jiedotvhj2ollxwpvau68qfe2tqedjun6hbxf3mtxes5lyaw.jpeg.jpeg?w=1140&v=2\"Nuttall\u2019s Woodpecker<\/u><\/em><\/a> drawn and gently referenced in 2023.<\/em><\/p>

Our governments continue to ignore many of our calls to protect the natural world. Many organisations and initiatives continue to lobby for a better relationship with the planet. As an artist with this project I call Birds Can Fly I believe my mission is to contribute to the conversation, I am just one artist of the many trying to use their inadequate and largely ignored skills to highlight an issue that continues to be disregarded by media machines that surround us. You dear reader, are probably on board with a desire to save the planet. Though we remain tiny little voices screaming into a dream-like void, silent, invisible and unheard.\u00a0<\/p>

Part of my self-reflection is to understand if my own work is successfully contributing to the conversation. I am at the pinnacle of what it is to be an ego-maniacal artist expecting you to pay attention to my hours of toil for no real reason. What is the purpose of art? Is a question that hangs over all students of the subject, I was and am no exception.\u00a0<\/p>

To question ones progress and position should not suggest that I do not appreciate my own achievements, I am in a position of privilege, I have received much attention and patronage from you dear reader, I am and always will be appreciative of this. However society has drummed into us that success is relative, we are on a treadmill that encourages us to contribute almost daily to social media channels. I realise that this grind promotes me but not my well-being. I\u2019ve come to realise that this is not an efficient way to get my\u00a0 work and projects into the world. Our screen lives promote instant gratification with little or no reflection, we all swipe and scroll with blind abandon.\u00a0<\/p>

\"kirqi9ho2ngifwf7t0uhdgodw9vwthugze39kxipdbsphhrn.jpeg.jpeg?w=1140&z=1.4000000000000004&fx=0.3571428571428571&fy=0.6218790118922638&v=2\"Leading a birdwatching tour in Court Hey Park in Merseyside with <\/em>Heart of Glass<\/u><\/em><\/a> in September 2023.<\/em><\/p>

With this in mind I intend to spend less time thinking about my socials and more time thinking about how to encourage further contemplation and research. In 2023 I was able to take my work into the world a little more, one highlight included my work with Heart of Glass, where I was able to share my own love of ornithology with children in Merseyside (above). Their enthusiasm for my work has become a symbol of hope in a troubling future, I\u2019m hoping to do more sharing in the real world this year. <\/p>

\"j1ekhbiyk3ygi1sldb6bnltwhcmnziey21jplfcd1ag5e3km.jpg.jpg?w=1140&v=2\"This blog has become and will continue to be a record of my research with Birds Can Fly. My other main work, The Pansy Project<\/u><\/a> continues to take up some time with some presences promised later this year. My book, Pansy Boy<\/u><\/a> also evolves with news to be announced soon. As ever my research and work will continue but will just be a little less present on social media.\u00a0<\/p>

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