Paula McCartney

(b.1971; resides St. Paul, MN)

Bird Watching, (Dark Eyed Junco), 2003

Bird Watching, (Yellow Warbler), 2003

Bird Watching, (Fork Tailed Flycatcher), 2003

Rather than settling for what nature has to offer, I have taken control and adorned the trees with their longed for, but absent, tenants. - Paula McCartney

Paula McCartney’s densely wooded landscapes are enlivened, ironically, by brightly colored craft store songbirds. While the deceit is more obvious in some pictures than others, what bears noticing is how these faux fowl punctuate their environments both as formal elements carefully arranged amid the arc and curve of brush and branches, and as a curious construction that offers an idealized vision of nature undercut by the gentle satire of that ideal. Expected to be a two-year project, McCartney began the Bird Watching series in 2003.

McCartney’s studies include a Certificate in Photography from the International Center of Photography, New York (1996), a BFA from Empire State College, New York (1998), and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute, California (2002). She is the recipient of a 2005 Women’s Studio Workshop Artist’s Book Production Grant and a 2004 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship Grant. Recent solo exhibitions include Bird Watching at Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York, and Constructed Landscapes at 364 Hayes Street Contemporary Art, San Francisco. Her work is also held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Arts Commission; and Stanford University, Palo Alto, California.

- Kendra Greene

http://www.paulamccartney.com