Birdsong

Canvas on wire armature
1.2m x 1.4m dimensions variable

This experimental painting was started and finished in Darwin. I wanted to find a way to make birdsong visual, because it felt like this would be a pivotal discovery to advance my visual expression of the Unseen.

The ground is rough and rocky, with intense texture and stormy colour in the lower left corner, and the little Eastern Yellow Robin (one of my favourites at home in Palmwoods) is perched on a strand of barbed wire, in circumstances not of his own choosing.

I had found myself in circumstances not of my choice, wrestling with being unsettled, trying to find balance and regain a sense of contentment – which became a real growing experience for me. These transition seasons – the in-between places and spaces – can be hard on us. We need to learn to still sing…

Perhaps it is the singing that causes the place and space to transition? The heartsong, sung despite the circumstances / space / place, that causes them to change? That causes us to change?

In the painting, the barbed wire that the Eastern Yellow Robin is sitting on, singing his little heart out, becomes a leafy vine, bearing heart-shaped leaves… The place of restriction, being fenced in, within barbed wire, transitions into leafy loveliness, entwining tendrils of love and compassion and growth. The heart-shaped leaves become hearts that float into space, and the atmosphere lightens into glistening pastel mists of love and glory.

Our attitude to life – our mindset – our decision to ‘sing’ wherever we find ourselves CAN and DOES change the atmosphere, which changes the place, which changes the outcomes, and ultimately changes US for the better.

So this painting became about more than my original plan to attempt to make birdsong visual, making the unseen seen. I learned as I painted, how my song, my praise and worship of God, can change the atmosphere and the environment in which we find ourselves.