I began pursuing a series of paintings a few years ago called “Modern Camouflage” which featured very realistically painted owls emerging from highly stylized, heavily patterned, wallpaper-like backgrounds. These pieces were meant to comment not only on the displacement of wildlife from natural to un-natural habitats, but more pointedly on the conflict between illusionistic and flat art in the latter half of the nineteenth century until the advent of post-modernism (and perhaps continuing through present day). The juxtaposition of realistic and decorative techniques and the stark contrast between organic and inorganic patterns, with only the subtlest transition between the two, created a wonderful tension.

“Modern Camouflage #6: Union Jack,” focuses on the European Robin. I encountered this bird flitting furtively in a dense and leafless winter hedgerow in Tewkesbury, England, and was inspired to take the background patterning in a somewhat different visual direction than previous “ModCam” offerings. The weave of twigs becomes a dense geometric matrix, with the blue and white of the sky contrasting against oxblood “branches” in a desaturated take on the British flag, fitting for a bird which I so immediately associate with my time in the UK.