Nature of Imitation

by Yola Monakhov Stockton

By looking closely at living birds in the field through the materiality of colour film and studio props, 'The nature of imitation' explores the connection between seeing, knowing, and wanting.In detailed, hyper-real photographs that recall the decorative drawings of natural history, the work evokes the delicate experience of holding a bird against traditions of landscape representation in Renaissance frescoes and tapestries, Modernist painting and sculpture, and the early history of photography. Through collaborations with scientists,ecologists, and naturalists on the Massachusetts coast,...