Illustrator Femke van Geffen, based in Rotterdam, created a new work focused on representation of paper birds in the real world. Each illustration shows a bird drawn in pencil with a cutout. Geffen brought these illustrations to different places where there were birds in their natural habitat and then took a photograph so that the natural habitat could be seen through the cutout of the drawing. Her hope is that these drawings become global and as she sends them all over the world people will take them and share their own photographs.
She shows several different birds in these drawings. The artist, who usually lives in Shoreditch, was even able to find the same species of birds as the drawings for some of the photographs. Although the drawings themselves might seem simple, the cutouts instantly make them mixed media. What is new about these illustrations is that the drawings are not mixed with other type of style of technique, but with life itself. The drawings, because of the cutouts, interact with living birds and the nature that surrounds them. The photograph of this interaction is the most important part, as it transmits how art is not necessarily trapped on a page or a canvas, it can very easily become part of life.
