Bird Ship
Exhibition dates: Wed 4 to Sat 21 June 2008
View the artworks
Like all good singer/songwriters, Tanya Sparke has a visual arts degree. Born and educated in Newcastle, NSW, (Bachelor of Arts Visual Arts Newcastle University) Tanya moved to Sydney in the mid eighties and gained a post graduate diploma in painting at the Sydney College of the Arts. Whilst music and motherhood has taken up most of her creative energy including a Bachelor of Music in Composition, Tanya has always retained her art practice.
Regarding this new body of work Tanya Sparke explains:
“This is a series of collages built around the concept of whimsy. The works evolved out of a love of maps and a concern around ‘Border Control”. Birds cross borders with ease, migration and immigration. Then the idea of a bird that sails became compelling. As a bower bird collects for its nest so each bird builds its own ship. So, many Tuckfield Tea cards later, an assemblage would evolve from the personality I saw in the bird, what ship it might build and what the bird would take with it, ready for the journey ahead”.