Where do I belong? opening at Logan Art Gallery

Currently I am part of a group exhibition at Logan Art Gallery titled “Where do I belong? Our birds in Art”.  The exhibition contains work I’ve recently completed several of wings titled "Hide" (pictured above) which will be on display till 29th August 2026.

The works pictured above are all from "Hide", a body of work dedicated to creating wings of birds that are critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable or at risk in Australia.  These 5 works focus on birds in danger in Queensland.  The textile pieces are made using felt, wool, pins and embroidery on fabric.  Birds featured include the Powerful Owl, the Red Goshawk, the Golden Shouldered Parrot, the Blue Winged Parrot, the Glossy Black Cockatoo, the Swift Parrot and the Ecclectus Parrot.  In three of the larger works, using the "exquisite corpse" technique I have created the bird wings from 3 or 4 birds in combination, this gathering of species creates a "new bird wing" or I have  reproduced my impression of the bird wings (as seen in the smaller works).  The smaller works are made using conventions of museum display to create a specimen which shows the two sides of the wing of a single bird.  The inclusion of pins refers to the processes of taxidermy and also the texture of the feathers of the animals.

The title is a play on the word hide which both refers to the structure created by humans in nature to observe birds and wildlife unseen and also the skinned animal used as carpet and wall display in interior design. In "Hides" I am looking at the strange relationship we have formed with animals where they are viewed and kept at a distance studied by scientists, drawn by artists and placed in museums and zoos, on display in our homes in our furniture and eaten from our plates. This distance is what “bird hide” is about, its a view or a perspective on animal life that is human, how we preserve, record, document, imagine and objectify an animal as process of admiration and a form of cognitive dissonance .