The final work in this series exploring avian motifs takes its title from Chaucer’s The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, in which the rooster Chauntecleer nearly meets his doom after a fox uses flattery to overcome his natural wariness, only to be flattered himself by the rooster into permitting Chauntecleer to escape. The tale warns the reader…
Tag: chaucer
Parliament of Fowles 3: Sparrowhawk (2018, wax on paper)
This visceral contribution to the Parliament of Fowles series vividly captures the chaos and violence of a sparrowhawk’s abrupt descent among its prey. The hawk is barely outlined and seems both lightning-fast and larger than life, its wings seeming to loom and threaten as much as beak and claw, while the mix of red and…
Parliament of Fowles 2: Rooks (2018, wax on paper)
In this lively evocation of a noisy, busy treetop rookery the ‘Parliament’ of the series title takes on a more localised meaning, as the collective noun for rooks (corvus frugilegus) is in fact a ‘Parliament’, referring to the folk myth that the birds hold communal court sessions to adjudicate on the theft by houseproud rooks…
Parliament of Fowles 1: Cock Pheasant (2018, wax on paper)
In this series the artist steps away from her colour-rich watercolour and tempera work, developing an economic line and use of space to capture the energy and essence of bird life. Inspired by Chaucer’s famous poem, the series teases us with a palimpsest of meanings ascribed by our human culture to the species around us,…
Like It Was Done By A Toddler 
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