put a bird on it

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

courtney coolbaugh: I use a lot of bird imagery in both painting and sculpture. The bird represents a fragile being caught between freedom and imprisonment, life and death. I often juxtapose bright colors with a stark black background to express and emphasize an emergence from darkness. I like to use many different materials – usually small things that need to be manipulated by hand in a process which is repeated to show the evidence of time. I create minute details that will draw the viewer in to take a closer more intimate look that will enable them to see the true broken surface underneath, focusing on a dichotomy between beauty and ugliness. My favorite medium is glass, which can represent so many things – fragility, vulnerability, danger, violence, and chance. The process of destroying something beautiful only so it can be put back together again deals with the idea of rehabilitation and recovery. My broken glass oil paintings encapsulate all of the above metaphors and also beg the question – what does it mean to be broken and what does it mean to be whole?

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