All items by The House of Dead Birds

I create tarot cards and editioned mixed media digital prints inspired by the occult, ancient Chinese scrolls and folk horror during an age of extinction.

I have been creating in the dark for nearly 40 years working in mixed media, oils, acrylics, household paint and wood stains. During Covid I converted almost exclusively to digital and sublimation printing, digitizing the real from photos of previous works and the outside world and mixing/collaging/evolving new creations.
In 2023 at the age of 57 I started to show my work to at art fairs and markets and to sell a set of prints that were called "The Dead Bird Scrolls", in part a response to a dying world, in part a memorial to the millions of birds that have died and continue to die of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 and all inspired by ancient Chinese scrolls and folk horror.

Why now? If not now then never. A friends death in 2022 is compelling me forward. The march of time is compelling me forward. New and old friends are giving me the confidence and belief to show my art again.

Why dead birds? I used to paint live birds (Budgerigars) but after my mum's death in 2016, the suicide of a friend and work colleague in 2018, coming to terms that we are living in an age of extinction…these birds are now dead.
We have stopped listening to the ‘Canaries in the coalmine’
What we create now, we do so in an age of extinction.
This is an artistic response to what feels like the end of the world.

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