From the apple brief i began with the idea of life cycle, seeds from the
apple feeding birds. When i started looking at birds i began to think about
their meaning and what they symbolize. for example owls representing wisdom and
a robin’s red chest representing the blood of Christ.
Firstly, I researched about magpies and became quite fascinated with the
hatred (within society) towards them and the extreme reactions some people have
towards them. for example when people see a lone magpie some people will salute
or spit three times and spin around in circle to try and avoid bad luck , also
some people believe that magpies are the bird of the devil and will make the
sign of a cross to ward off the devil. Also in Scotland some people believe
that a magpie seen at your window is a sign of impending death.
I began researching poems about magpies and how they link to luck and
superstitions. This made me think about what magpies have done to deserve this
reputation. So i looked at bird books and found that they are known for being
aggressive and thieves. i also found a religious painting by piero della
Francesca from the year 1420, the painting is of the birth of jesus Christ,
there is a magpie in this painting that is believed to symbolize the sorrow to
come. This made me wonder how far back these superstitions go?
While researching, I visited wollaton hall to see the taxidermy bird
collection I began sampling and exploring form with painting ,this was
underpinned by the paintings ‘2 weeks one summer’ by Damien Hirst. I was interested by the way he used birds to
create a feeling of happiness and life, but in the background objects of death are
in his paintings, I interpret this as juxtaposition of life and death.
However my paintings lacked context and didn’t really have much of a
message behind them. I found that line drawings had more energy and appear more
alive and fluid. I decided to focus my work around the Magpie my initial
experiments were around beauty and desire.
After gathering research I began making rural backgrounds to place my
magpies into, but this idea wasn’t really challenging how people think about
magpies ,so again it lacked context.
I decided that the poems really told the story about the superstitions
behind magpies, so I decided it was crucial to the piece. From here I began
silk screening the backgrounds of poetic text onto fabrics, then silk screening
the line drawing magpies on top. I experimented with beads and colour this is
when I gained the concept behind my work being greed and lust for materialistic
things, this can drive people to do things like stealing and being envious of
others.
I began to think that people dislike magpies because they can’t stand to
see their own human flaws mirrored back at them from another animal. This
concept was strongly underpinned by Damien Hirst’s painting ‘2 weeks one summer’
because my work is deliberately happy looking and appears quite innocent,
however it has a much deeper and darker meaning behind like Damien Hirst’s
work.
My canvases are deliberately ‘over the top’ with ornamental decoration. I
have chosen the beads and colour because this is something that is associated
with what magpies steal (or rather collect).
I also feel the plastic ‘fakeness’ of the beads reminds me of how
children’s toys are replicas of adults things.
The work has become quite gender specific because people stereotypically
associate beads and pearls with females. and this reminds me of a Barbie doll
aesthetic, but instead it is a magpie in the center of the canvas. This is
intentionally comedic and witty to poke fun at the way people behave and how a
materialistic need is drilled into us from such a young age.
