I work in series exploring concepts, themes and mediums through related imagery. This group of images examines the bond/rupture between human and animal nature. I am interested in the extent and balance of these natures expressed in interaction with our environment. Many questions are posited. Are helicopters and birds related? Can technical ingenuity and awe of flight connect us to our animal heritage? Is it our nature to create and destroy? I am concerned with the role of time in answering these questions.
In each image a contained narrative world is defined and also distorted. This is a world where birds play a spiritual and psychological role usually assigned to humans. The space in each is a reflection of the familiar three dimensional world we are trained to read from two dimensional information. Here the edges of the picture plane have been bowed-out, or interrupted, warping the space slightly, creating a sense of ill-ease. The images suggest a debasement of the environment, a possible consequence of violence or a cycle of destruction not typical - animals apparently triumphant over (or unaffected by) the humans whose skulls they carry off. There are hopeful passages - an egg in a nest, new growth of colorful trees, a glimpse of the future.
In the diptych, Song of Icarus, a drawing with college elements, the exchange of human and animal characteristics is manifest in the use of feathers for the woman's hair and human hair for the falling bird. That there are literally two halves to the work is a reflection of this duality. The world seems orderly yet contains bizarre events: helicopters carried off by a giant bird, or taking off from the ribcage of the woman. A bird falls into the sea. A cloud of uncertain composition abuts a dotted and barred sky. An underlying structure of receding rectangles creates a grid suggesting pages of a sketchbook; perception through the passage of time.
I envision a three dimensional component to this series. I am planning to make life size (meaning the size in the images) cut-outs of some of the birds and their cargo which would hang from the ceiling near the wall mounted drawings and mixed medium works. This exciting possibility is dependent on site-specific space.
Margaret Weber
