Series · 6 works · 2019 – 2021

The Asian Songbird Crisis

In 2019 a Creature Conserve scholarship let me spend two years on a single question: why are the forests of Southeast Asia going quiet?

I shadowed conservation teams in Malaysia and Indonesia with Planet Indonesia, FLIGHT and TRAFFIC — through trapping grounds, bird markets and singing contests — and drew what I found. The work became an exhibition in four chapters: birds in the wild; birds as part of culture and tradition; the crisis itself; and saving the birds.

Shown

Timiryazev State Biology Museum, Moscow — solo, 2021
HEARTH, Art Outreach Singapore — 2020

A cluster of small pale-eyed songbirds rendered in loose watercolour, crowded toward one edge of the sheet — White-eyes2021 · Watercolour on paper · 42 × 59 cmSold
White-eyes are trapped in such numbers that entire local populations vanish before anyone records they were there.

A single bulbul behind the bars of a domed cage, cut in stark black relief — Just one red-whiskered bulbul in a cage2021 · Linocut on paper · 30 × 40 cm · Edition of 20USD 3,200AvailableEnquire
A Javanese proverb holds that a real man has a wife, a horse, a house, a dagger and a songbird. Demand is not a market failure here — it is a culture.

Rows of hanging cages above a crowd at a competition, the birds small and the people large — Singing contest2021 · Mixed media on paper · 70 × 100 cmUSD 3,900AvailableEnquire
PLACEHOLDER — caption needed.

Rows upon rows of stacked transport cages filling the whole sheet, the birds inside indicated only as marks — How many is too many2021 · Mixed media on paper · 59 × 84 cmUSD 6,200AvailableEnquire
Hundreds of thousands of birds are taken from the wild in Indonesia every year for domestic and international markets.

Two open cupped hands holding a small bird, the thread stitched directly through the paper — It's in our hands2021 · Watercolour and embroidery thread on paper · 42 × 59 cmUSD 2,400AvailableEnquire
The closing chapter of the Moscow exhibition — the one about what can still be done.

A bird market stall stacked to the ceiling, drawn in washes that run together — Market2020 · Watercolour and ink on paper · 59 × 84 cmUSD 6,800AvailableEnquire
PLACEHOLDER — caption needed.