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Artist Debra Ramsay became fascinated with the way that birds and their colors mark changes in the seasons. In her “Migrations” project, she painted species seen in New York’s Central Park, creating an abstract design from the three main colors of each bird. Debra layered colors into thick plexiglass panels, so the paintings appear to change when seen from different angles.
See more of Debra's artwork and learn the story behind the paintings in this blog post.
BirdNote®
Creating Abstract Paintings of Migratory Birds
Written by Conor Gearin
This is BirdNote.
[Central Park birdsong with Northern Cardinals]
Artist Debra Ramsay became fascinated with the way that birds and their colors mark changes in the seasons. In her “Migrations” project, she painted species seen in New York’s Central Park, creating an abstract design from the three main colors of each bird.
Debra Ramsay: While the paintings ultimately are very abstract, I am trying to stay faithful to that particular species in the way I represent it.
Debra layered colors into thick plexiglass panels, so the paintings appear to change when seen from different angles.
Debra Ramsay: And specifically in the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, they have a small patch of bright red feathers at the back of their head that is usually only revealed when the bird is alarmed in some way.
[Ruby-crowned Kinglet song]
Debra Ramsay: So for this particular painting, you must get quite close up to it, and then as you're sort of looking down over the top of the panel, this little red patch is visible.
There are plenty of great realistic depictions of birds out there, so Debra wanted to offer something different.
Debra Ramsay: By me choosing to abstract aspects of the bird, I feel that it gives the viewer an opportunity to reflect or remember the time perhaps they saw that bird, and they then get to, very personally, complete the image.
See some of Debra’s artwork on our website, BirdNote dot org. I’m Conor Gearin.
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Producer: Mark Bramhill
Managing Editor: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Conor Gearin
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Northern Cardinal ML149149291 recorded by Mickey Ryan, and Ruby-crowned Kinglet ML72091651 recorded by Gregory Budney.
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2024 BirdNote February 2024
Narrator: Conor Gearin
ID# ramsayd-01-2024-02-22 ramsayd-01