“Born of the same wood, one tethered and trussed, the other unbound. Between them, the bird built its nest.”
I was inspired by the legend of the first tiger, once a boy, whipped until the flesh welled and broke, until pain became hide and roar. His suffering was so complete that he transformed—his scars, transfigured.
Around them, I built a composition in triads. On the left, the telephone pole- juxtaposed with the scarred body alludes to Christ-like imagery: upright, man-made, functional, exploited, yet one that holds many ties to its community. On the right, the tree: untamed and sprawling- represents a raw resource within and virgin to forces foreign to its nature.
Between them, the bird. The bird is my most honest gesture—it is perched in such a way that I myself cannot tell whether it rests on the wire or the branch. Hybridity, liminality, ambiguity. The dutiful son, the restless child, the theist, the skeptic—unable to be fully claimed by one origin. The bird in the center still hovers, unresolved. I left it there for the viewer to not decide on a straightforward answer, but rather wrestle in the between.
