Looking closely at birds in the fields, through colour film and studio props, The Nature of Imitation considers the physical and metaphorical qualities of landscape. Like natural history drawings, the frames reimagine traditions of representation drawn from Renaissance tapestries, from the early history of the medium, and from modernist painting and sculpture.

Collaborating with scientists and naturalists in Massachusetts, New York and Costa Rica, the artist gained access to wild birds caught for banding and release, and to others held captive in laboratories. Alongside work made in woods, orchards and gardens, it cultivates a vocabulary of techniques attending to the process of making a picture and to the emotions and ethics of looking at other creatures.

“While understanding the medium as a craft as well as an art, she pushed against its limitations.”