Here, some days are all feathers and flowers

A bird stands nearly the full height of the panel, assembled from hundreds of interlocking discs and lozenges in cream, rust, charcoal and pale blue — the same cellular vocabulary as the Sanctuary birds, but pushed until the creature is barely holding together as anatomy. The comb and tail are loose and ragged; the body is dense. Around it, seed heads and stems in muted grey and ochre grow to the same scale as the bird, so the eye keeps losing the boundary between animal and field. That confusion is the painting. The title is casual and the picture is not.