“Everyone wants to understand art. Why not try to understand the song of a bird? Why does one love the night, flowers, everything around one, without trying to understand them? But in the case of a painting people have to understand. If only they would realize above all that an artist works of necessity, that he himself is only a trifling bit of the world, and that no more importance should be attached to him than to plenty of other things which please us in the world, though we can't explain them. People who try to explain pictures are usually barking up the wrong tree.” —Pablo Picasso, Picasso on Art: A Selection of Views
Inspired by the many birds of paradise—both the kind that are connected to the earth and those others that magnificently fly above it—this series luxuriates in the exotic, the magical, that which is glimpsed behind closed eyes.
"Aladdin's Lamp Bird of Paradise," Oil on Canvas, 25 x 48 inches, 2007
"Duck in Paradise," Oil on Canvas, 2009, 30 x 33 inches
"Bird of Paradise in Flames," Oil on Canvas, 18 x 26 inches, 2011
"Bird of Paradise in Blue and Yellow," Oil on Canvas, 18 x 26 inches, 2010
"Bird of Paradise and Golden Apple," Oil on Canvas, 22 x 24 inches, 2008–2009