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Event Details
Silent Skies: Endangered and Extinct Birds
January 14, 2025 – March 28, 2025
The exhibition Silent Skies features paintings and drawings of endangered and extinct birds by local artist Stacie Birky Greene. Birky Greene has taken on this project in hopes of drawing attention to the plight of these birds their connection to our changing planet.
The central focus of Birky Greene’s work has been to explore nature through a combination of materials and techniques. Her approach has often been guided by a fascination with form and shape, particularly as nodes for connecting unlikely allies, such as coral and cacti. By taking organic materials (or at least their representation) out of context, she compels the viewer to revel in patterns of structural unity. Her recent work has also considered the impact of human consumption and climate change on the natural world. Appalled by mass deforestation and habitat destruction, she has turned her attention to bird species that have gone extinct since the time of her own birth. The tangible results of this study will be revealed over the course of the next few years, in a variety of projects. One feature of these works that is important to consider is her choice of materials: namely, junk mail, which she either uses “as is” or manipulates, with the addition of other detritus, into homemade paper. It is a project that implicates us all in its struggle: here are beautiful objects made, nevertheless, from unwanted materials. Moreover, the materials themselves are the products of overconsumption of resources – fossil fuels burned in production and transportation, and deforestation to provide wood pulp for paper. The problem of avian ecology and the pressures these birds face is multidimensional, but the viewer is placed in the unlikely position of assessing and admiring the victim even as its emblem is formed from components that have been implicated in its destruction.
An artist reception will be held in the Taylor Gallery/Community Room Saturday January 18, 2025 from 3-5 pm.
Exhibition Opportunities
Interested in exhibiting your art? Apply today! Go to mysdpl.org/visualarts
Applications will be considered on a first-come basis. Organizations and individuals based in San Diego or serving primarily San Diego residents, which have not used exhibit space within the past year, will be given priority.