Joel Bird Statement

I have always thought of a painting as a visual poem. An art form with a distilled meaning, not specific, a way to express that which is difficult to define. And like a poem, its meaning can take on a spiritual significance, slightly out of reach of the conscious mind. 

The birds in the picture are often a representation of this spirit or perhaps a medium between worlds. The true self, childlike, or a spirit of the unborn mind, that longs to be free, but is subject to more earthly duties. I think of the bird sometimes as ‘the soul’, without ever really understanding what the soul is.

When I was a child, I was a keen bird watcher, (a nature lover really). Over the years, the act of bird watching or being around nature has in itself been a means to ‘stop thinking’, a way to allow my subconscious to contemplate and work its way through complicated thoughts or feelings. This has become true now, when I paint.

I still go out into nature for this reason and I often draw inspiration from the Margate coastline. The landscapes are a reminder that life is brief, that one day we will have no thoughts and that everything carries on, a ballast to the indulgences of human introspection.

The words that accompany the paintings, are an invitation, to pause and contemplate. They’re ‘a way in’, for both the viewer and for me, to not just think aesthetically about a painting, but to consider its meaning. Sometimes the image comes first, sometimes the words, sometimes they evolve together and influence each other. It doesn’t really matter.