Birds & Plants: Art Exhibit by Jennalyn Speer

May 1-31. On view in the West Wing of the Visitors Center Gallery and the Grand Hallway. There will be an opening reception on May 7 from 3-5 pm with an artist talk at 4 pm.

This mixed media collage series highlights the interdependencies shared between birds and plants. Symbolism and science are intertwined as the art shares a message of the need for conservation and our biological, cultural, emotional, and spiritual attachment to the natural world.

Artist statement: The works in this series are mixed media collages, but they did not begin that way. After creating several traditional watercolor pieces, it became evident that cutting and layering paper fragments of maps, reference books, sewing patterns, dictionary pages, and field guides was the ideal means to express the layers of scientific data, issues of conservation, and metaphoric resonance of the birds that make up my work. Compositionally, each piece is united by the use of a circle. This shape symbolizes the theme of cyclical balance in nature and also offsets the foreground from the background, helping to delineate a space of belonging or habitat for each species. By including birds within or on the outside of these circles, painting them onto maps of their home ranges then physically extracting, shifting, or repositioning them, I embody the physical reality of destroyed, shifted, or altered ecosystems. Adding or removing layers of paint and paper acknowledges belonging, loss, and the complexity of environmental interconnectedness.