Birds

— 2016 —

Colomer’s work is rooted in questions of intimacy and sensuality. Her latest body of work is inspired by the Museum of Natural History’s collection. Through the metaphor of dead birds, Colomer returns to the question of suffocation in a couple and death within a romantic relationship. This work also explores the concept of tradition, in its ability to be both beautiful and stifling. Traditional painting technique and still life subjects join naturalist drawings and handicrafts, or embroider. This is a way to think about gender and confinement through the progression of a relationship, as well as through historical norms of heterosexual romance in the West. Embroidering good pieces for a trousseau, in preparation for marriage, was a sign of good upbringing and chastity, as well as a promise of domestic bliss to come. To see them adorned instead with clichés of family life offers a hollow, even entrapping, undertone to domesticity. Like the birds, trapped in a moment together.

Paintings: « Honey, What’s for dinner ? » oil, emulsion painting on canvas and embroidery, 30x 40, 2016. « Darling I’m home ! » oil, emulsion on canvas painting and embroidery, 30x 40, 2016.

Sketches: Dead birds, pencil on paper, 16×20, 2016