Some preliminary sketches for my large paper work for Year of the Bird."...Our relationship with the bird is complex. We have a long cultural history of using birds decoratively, symbolically, narratively, allegorically and consuming them literally and metaphorically through advertising, art, commerce and fashion. My work for Year of the Bird borrows from mythological, literary and popular culture representations of birds and re-imagines them in abstracted imaginary ‘field studies’. These large scale painted drawings are also personal interpretations of the museological and presentational aspects of natural history traditions, incorporating abstract note-taking, anatomy and typography. References to these borrowed traditions are…