The sculptural quality that these birds create attracts me as an artist.
As a kid, I liked to have my hands in the mud, feeling the textures with my fingers and forming something out of it. I get the same experience when applying paint to a canvas. It’s tactile, earthy and engaging. Sensing the volume, texture, and light playing on the feathers of a wing becomes the reality. There are moments when I forget I’m painting a whole bird – the feather or surface of a wing becomes an object, a playground, a discovery, an abstract shape really. It’s not the posture of the bird or what the bird is doing actually that holds the interest. It’s the enjoyment of painting and resolving these shapes and textures, that become the challenge and energy behind a work and that’s important. The process is really the vital key behind the piece that hopefully results in conveying an emotional response from an onlooker.
Description: Embden goose.
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Dimensions: 49cm x 70cm