Caged Bird
Acrylic and Mixed media • 2024 • 20 x 24.5 x 0.014 in
Safe enough to move
a feather tests the silence
the space answers kindly
Caged Bird is a work of reclamation, resilience, and self-liberation. Created during a period of profound personal transition, the painting transforms fragments of lived history , recovered documents, layered paper, and textured remnants, into a new architecture of becoming.
Inspired by Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird, the work reflects the tension between confinement and freedom, silence and voice, harm and healing. Beneath translucent veils of white and iridescent color, hidden structures and reclaimed materials remain visible, bearing witness to systems that once restricted movement, identity, and safety, now reorganized into a living field of self-authored meaning.
A hummingbird emerges at the lower edge of the composition , a spirit messenger and symbol of endurance, love, and continuity , honoring both loss and renewal. Its presence transforms the painting from a record of survival into a declaration of flight.
The poem inscribed on the reverse of the work anchors Caged Bird as both testament and talisman: a piece not only about escape, but about voice reclaimed, love remembered, and freedom embodied.
The painting stands as a living declaration , a soul once confined, now choosing its own sky.
Inspired by Maya Angelou’s Caged Bird, the work reflects the tension between confinement and freedom, silence and voice, harm and healing. Beneath translucent veils of white and iridescent color, hidden structures and reclaimed materials remain visible, bearing witness to systems that once restricted movement, identity, and safety, now reorganized into a living field of self-authored meaning.
A hummingbird emerges at the lower edge of the composition , a spirit messenger and symbol of endurance, love, and continuity , honoring both loss and renewal. Its presence transforms the painting from a record of survival into a declaration of flight.
The poem inscribed on the reverse of the work anchors Caged Bird as both testament and talisman: a piece not only about escape, but about voice reclaimed, love remembered, and freedom embodied.
The painting stands as a living declaration , a soul once confined, now choosing its own sky.