This is the first in a new sequence of artworks which are the culmination of much thinking of late. Patient and careful observation of birds over many years has brought its own surprising revelations, of significance beyond the mode of mere depiction for the artist. I now understand a possible route to help crystallise the essence of something that cannot satisfactorily be put into words or indeed visually capture in a conventional sense.

This painting (for it cannot be yet called an ikon) is an image of the Glossy Ibis (plegadis falcinellus). Careful observers will see glimpses of an iconography that will I hope reveal some of the aforementioned thinking. I also hope they will forgive what may appear initially as a conceit but is in fact – and most importantly, very far from the intention. For there is something in the manner of birds which is unique in creation and which Messiaen and others too knew well.

Plegadis falcinellus (Glossy Ibis) 125x180mm
Painted gesso board

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