Birds have been represented in art since ancient times: the sacred ibis in Egypt; hornbills in African sculpture; the tethered goldfinch of Fabritius; the encyclopaedic work of Audubon and the other great artist-naturalists of the 18th and 19th centuries; right through to Monet's remarkable turkeys and Baselitz's upside-down eagles.

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It's no surprise that birds are so widely represented. They are somehow special: in part, perhaps, because of their power of flight... they can come close to us, because it's easy for them to escape. 

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Evolution has made birds spectacularly beautiful. And like us, birds sing. We have given them multiple symbolic meanings: owls for wisdom, doves for peace, the vanity of the peacock...

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But of course these are only our meanings. Birds' lives are governed by other imperatives: by the endless struggle to survive, and by their troubled relationship with us.

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My art focuses on birds as other artists might focus on the human figure or landscape. I strive to represent birds differently, rejecting prettiness and sentimentality, and often locating them in a sort of magic realism.  

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In pre-scientific cultures, birds and other animals had imagined voice and spirit: there was less perceived separation between us and other creatures. I want to recover that imagination: I want birds to speak to us again.