A Primer of Birds
Each artist in the exhibition (which takes its title from an elusive late twentieth-century poetry book of the same name, by poet Ted Hughes and artist Leonard Baskin), explores the complexities of human character and the raptures found in life, through the lens of avian imagery.
As Ali Kazim has spotlighted the Hudhud or Hoopoe in his work, a bird which encompasses cultural significance in Islamic texts and folklore, the artists in this exhibition have intertwined images of crows, ravens, magpies and other ornithological creatures into their visual lexicon to stir a visual communiqué which gestures towards thoughts concerned with the environment, the physiological, poetic and spiritual.
In the etchings of Georg Baselitz we see a convocation of eagles, a subject which became a steadfast feature of his graphic work from 1970 onward. For Baselitz, the eagle was an autobiographical motif, a realisation of the self, interrogating both personal and political histories while resolutely committed to a disruptive process of orienting and disorienting, challenging what defines traditional, symbolic or subversive picture-making.
So too, in the works of Paula Rego, animals and birds enduringly feature as essential players in the cast of characters Rego called on to manifest her images acting out unsettling scenarios, nudging the senses into awkward spots that leave the viewer slightly off guard and disconcerted. Rego expressed that she often depicted people she knew as animals “because you can do things to animals which you cannot do to people because it is too shocking”. We observe the ‘shape shifting’ females of Bird Women Playing, 1995, dancing around the tiny image of a man, and the menacing presence of a ‘crow’ which features through all three works by the artist. Through literature and art crows have symbolised death and despair as well as being symbols of mischievousness, power and good luck. The Crow and His Cat and The Crow's House were made in 1994, six years following the death of her husband Victor Willing. Here one could imagine that the crow was a vessel through which to channel deep despair but also a motif to conjure luck and hope.
In Hew Locke’s Kings and Queens 14, 2025 his carnival marcher takes on the form of an avian humanoid, a striking costume for this character leaning into the transformative power of processions, art, and parades.
Humphrey Ocean, Yinka Shonibare and Joe Tilson incorporate birds which reference a particular environment highlighting specific ecological connections. Ocean’s Curlew, 2026, portrays the distinctive, long-billed wading bird with wide-ranging habitats, complex migratory behaviours, and important ecological roles. Ocean’s passion for nature is expressed through this endearing representation of a species under threat and requiring conservation efforts. Shonibare’s African Bird Magic, 2023 series depict birds indigenous to Africa, all of which are endangered. Tilson selects images of the Italian Golden Oriole, a notable bird found in Siena, Italy, known for its sweet, flute-like song and vibrant yellow plumage, and the Gazzalabra, a misspelling of the Italian term for "thieving magpie”. Both works are part of Tilson’s Conjunction, 2001 series which celebrate the natural world of a beloved landscape.
For Jim Dine, Tom Hammick and Mimmo Paladino the poetic underscores their practise. Paladino’s Stupor Mundi title literally translates as ‘wonder of the world’. Hammick’s representations of magpies in Three Magpies and Uncaged from 2023 dial into the vulnerability of the human psyche and its susceptibility to the forces of nature. Informed by poetry, music and film, Hammick’s work reflects on a mixture of wonderment and melancholia for the world around us. For Dine, his images of birds, made over a long period of time, were developed to achieve the atmospheric effects and emotional tenor he sought in his work, with each bird he depicted reflecting an emotion with which he identifies.
Julian Opie’s Small Birds, 2020, picture species of birds familiar throughout Australia’s urban landscape. For Opie, whose father was Australian, Australia, and its urban and outback myths and history, were a large part of his childhood, but it was only when he was invited to exhibit there that he began to get to know the country. It was a commission for a traffic island in Melbourne which inspired the idea for this series.
The depictions of avian scenes in A Primer of Birds unites each artist’s interests and intentions, serving as collective commentary on the interconnectedness of life, and the immense energies manifested in the world of nature.
Artists: Georg Baselitz, Jim Dine, Tom Hammick, Fernand Léger, Hew Locke, Humphrey Ocean, Julian Opie, Mimmo Paladino, Paula Rego, Yinka Shonibare, Joe Tilson.
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"I always know the people in my pictures. Very often they take the form of monkeys and bears and all sorts of things. It’s easier if you make them into animals because you can do things to animals that you can’t do to people because it’s too shocking."
Paula Rego, 2011
“Many birds share our living space and, thanks to flight, are largely free to ignore us and safely cross borders and carry on their natural behaviour as usual.
Not many wild animals can do this anymore, and we are left sharing our space with domesticated animals and a few hardy rodents. Even insects seem to have largely given up on us, but birds remain wild and independent.”
Julian Opie, 2020
"I combined endangered birds with ritual masks because these masks represent the pre-industrial African time, and a lot of ancestral practices and rituals were in harmony with nature and about the relationship with nature.
Before industrialisation and the colonisation of Africa many people tried to live with nature. It was about respecting the ecosystem and always trying to get a balance."
Yinka Shonibare, 2024
