Original artwork description:

My fascination with birds continued with this painting with the title being borrowed from the nursery rhyme. The rhyme has been immortalised by the Counting Crows in their song ‘A Murder of One’ which is one of my favourite songs. Since the illness and subsequent death of both my elderly parents‚ I found birds cropping up in my work‚ particularly owls and crows. I did a bit of research on the symbolism of each bird and found that the owl and the crow have a strong association with death in many cultures.

I think this association with birds may have come from the emails Mum and I exchanged when she was in hospital and later on in a home. We live on the river and as such the birdlife is prolific‚ and I was telling her the only bird I hadn’t seen was a swan. I was extremely excited one day to see a lone swan majestically sailing up the river but it made a very strange honking sound – turned out my swan was a goose‚ which amused Mum no end. That goose hung around until about a week after Mum died and I didn’t see it again until maybe a year after her death when she appeared with a partner goose. I chose to take that as a sign that my parents were together again and they were reassuring me they were ok. I haven’t seen that goose again.

Materials used:

Oil on Linen

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