The Collector (Musings)

Acrylic, oil, gold leaf and metallic paint on cradled wooden birch panel, 29x31x4cm.
The Collector explores the uneasy relationship between value, desire, and the things we choose to treasure. At its centre sits a European starling, a bird renowned for its iridescent beauty and remarkable intelligence. Less widely known is the fact that starlings, like magpies, have been observed collecting bright, reflective and unusual objects for their nests. Here, that instinct is exaggerated into a contemporary reliquary of modern treasures: plastic toys, packaging, confectionery and trinkets gathered alongside a single real egg. The nest becomes a portrait of a culture increasingly drawn to the artificial. The genuine egg sits among colourful substitutes, questioning what is authentic and what merely imitates life. The starling, itself a species that has suffered significant decline in the UK, becomes both collector and witness.
A halo encircles the bird, elevating it to the status of a sacred icon and inviting us to consider the natural world as something worthy of reverence rather than consumption. Above, gold paint drips descend from the top of the panel. Traditionally, gold in religious art represents the divine, eternity and spiritual value. Here it appears to be melting or slipping away, suggesting a gradual erosion of the sacred in favour of the disposable and manufactured.
Part devotional icon and part contemporary vanitas, The Collector asks what we are building our nests from, and what may be lost when imitation begins to replace the real thing.