 Artist Joel Bird has chosen the subject of Birds for his latest project, a subject that has captivated him since childhood. A love of ornithology has inspired him to explore our relationship with birds, but this is the first exhibition he has focused solely on the subject.
’I want to separate myself from the more technically proficient work involving birds which sometimes suffers from a photographic realism that destroys their grace and beauty. I want to use my style of painting to express movement and character and show why throughout the ages we have connected ourselves with birds and why we continue to use them as symbols and metaphors for our thoughts and emotions. Joel Bird has recently returned this year from exhibits in Philadelphia and Florida and is looking forward to exhibiting again in his home town. The exhibition will be a variety of art work, from large scale majestic canvases to a series of small scale watercolours. Also included are Bird sculptures and casts, and an interesting study of bird song. My paintings take 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. With my bird sculpture, I try to create interesting shapes and textures that might appear in nature, experimentation takes place in the cast materials. In a study of bird calls I re-create ‘natural sounds’ using analogue synthesizers as a backdrop to my work. The bird call has something indelibly linked with human art. Bird song is not just about hard wired genetic outbursts, they have dialect, they learn from their neighbors and create their own patterns. | 
