Joel Bird

www.joelbird.com

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Paintings, sculpture and sound. I use expressionist and formalist ideas to represent our struggles to include thoughts to a natural order. The lines of flux in my work are an attempt to reconcile our duality as nature has. I visualize magnetic fields, knots in wood or water erosion in rock.

I am interested in the harmony and tension between opposing forces. I visualize the interaction between what is internal and external as a flow of form that composes a framework which allows stability (reality) to exist. I want to show duality by using both expressionist and formalist ideas to represent our struggles to include thoughts to the natural order of the universe.

The lines of flux in my work are an attempt to reconcile our duality as nature has. I visualize magnetic fields, knots in wood or water erosion in rock. To me they also represent how our subconscious relationship with our memories and feelings determine how we see the present moment. My involvement with the painting extends also to the construction of the frames and the stretching of the canvas.

I have worked as a carpenter and I consider the skill of craft and quality interesting. I usually sculpt birds from Clay, slate and wood, I try to create interesting shapes and textures that in my imagination might appear in nature. Experimentation takes place in the cast materials, or in the location in which the casts are placed.

I also create simulations of bird calls using a collection of old analogue synthesizers, sometimes I use them as a ‘back drop’ to view my work. The bird song has something indelibly linked with human art, it is not just about hard wired genetic outbursts, birds have dialect, they learn from their neighbors and create their own patterns.

I have also exhibited photographs of chimneys and marathon runners. I like to study a subject, chimneys for example are just one of those things in life people never really notice properly, and this is everything to do with art.

Event:  Birds in the Park - 03.11.2008 - 09.11.2008