Bird Painting Warhol – Vic Reeves, AKA Jim Moir, and His Creepy Birds | Art

ONErt of celebrities are often risible. But there is nothing inadvertently funny about the technically excellent paintings by Jim Moir, AKA Vic Reeves. He does not play it for laughs either. There are no jokes here, only accurate, intense depictions of birds.

Moir, an avid bird watcher, has obviously spent a lot of time looking at nature, even further refining his style. His studies of nutmeg, finches, waterfowl, a red kite, a nightingale and more are finely observed, lovingly detailed ornithological works. The examined objectivity of these bird portraits – beautifully capturing the curly skin and claws on feet that grip branches, the softness and structure of feathers and light shades against the sky – brings the Victorian tradition of careful animal art back to life.

But as you get acquainted with this quiet art, sucked into the mentality of Moir’s hobby as a bird walker, surrealism begins to creep in after all. Blue Tit & Vim – imagine the title being read by Reeves – depicts a small bird sitting on top of an empty bleach container. It suddenly tears us from the pure nature into an ugly glimpse of everyday pollution. Still, it’s fun, and it’s pop art, as if the great American bird artist John James Audubon was crossed with Warhol. It is also a nice design of the classic definition of a surreal image as “the random encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table”.

Birds are the favorite creatures of surrealism. From Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven, to Max Ernst’s identification with the bird-headed shaman Loplop and his painting Two Children Threatened by a Nightingale, to Alfred Hitchcock’s surrealist horror The Birds, these chirping inhabitants of heaven have haunted the dreams of modern art. And the more time you spend on Moir’s show, the scarier his birds become.

The eyes are on you. Four portraits of owls stare straight back from large flat faces, their glassy, ​​reflective depths captured brilliantly in very compelling watercolor work. You can see the world mirrored in them. What are the owls thinking about? An oil painting of a snowy owl is even more intense, its gaze taken a step from reality into a dream world of warm colors, where it hovers mysteriously.

After being flipped out by the owls, you see eyes everywhere. The exhibition, it becomes clear, is not so much about us watching birds as about birds watching us. Behind the veil of his humor, it turns out that Moir is not only a romantic, but a radical. Hints of bird consciousness chirp from his images. Downstairs, in a cluttered office where some of his works are more atmospherically exhibited (they would really be stunning in the Gothic setting at the Natural History Museum, rather than a gallery with white walls), is his painting of a rhino whose horn is changed to a rhino. arm that gives humanity the finger.

Moir’s oil paintings are (so far) less authoritative than his watercolors. They’re a little naughty. But this is the exhibition of an artist who is still evolving: it is a brave, modest demonstration of his ongoing self-education. That is why drawing and painting is so beautiful. No matter who you are and no matter your age, you can develop the skills and sensitivity to paint from life. Moir, 63, is an example.

In addition to skill, it is the love of nature that glows. You end up feeling stared at by birds that can see all our destructiveness. Blamed that Vim can.