Eastern Birds

Works

Three new painted ceiling panels for an apartment at the Carlyle Hotel - New York.
A stylized coffered ceiling, with indigenous Eastern U.S birds. A collaboration with William Cullum / Thomas Jayne at JDS - NYC.

"Eastern Birds" was executed at the Amsterdam studio.
Installed in New York City in 2023.

Pintail duck

Eastern birds

Lay-out for a Carlyle ceiling

Common Grackle

( Detail )

"Cycling or walking through the centre of Amsterdam on late winter nights, I sometimes hear the sound of wild geese crossing over, through the darkness, high above the city.
Like sounds from a parallel universe. .
For me it's a deeply cherished phenomenon."

Common Grackle

( Detail )

Pintail duck

Yellow Billed Cuckoo

All these birds here in the center of Manhattan would consider the Hudson River woodlands as their natural habtat.

Waxwings

Ten years ago I designed and executed a ceiling like this on a much larger scale for a Cees Dam designed boardroom. done in the architect’s modernist Scarpa influenced style .
Graphically stylized and almost abstract, yet executed in subtle limestone hues, giving it all a “life” touch, and warm light.
The inner squares are like islands of detail and colour; sky, birds and ornaments, set like gems in a vast grid structure .

It was the great insight of William Cullum at JDS-NYC that this design with some adjustments, might also function on a smaller scale at this Carlyle Hotel apartment..
And it does .. brilliantly so ..

American Kestrel

( Detail )

Eurasian Starlings

Ceiling Overview inmpression

Some of the coffers are sealed

with smaller or larger ornamented tiles

Dear William
I think using indigenous U.S birds might be a good idea, as there is such a simple and elegant sense of logic to it.
Amsterdam 17th c. bird ceilings – a genre of which I’m currently installing a new interpretation in a 1670's canalhouse monument - would often show a mix of tropical and local birds, thereby reflecting a sense of wealth, international orientation and the far reaching influence of Dutch military and colonial power. . . Later that would shift to an early scientific Natural History approach .
Today, when almost everybody is a cosmopolitan in some sort of way, I think using a specific selection of native birds has (re)gained a different meaning. From the perspective of preservation. . but also as a sense of “belonging” and "locality". .

"Cycling or walking through the centre of Amsterdam on late winter nights, I sometimes hear the sound of wild geese crossing over,
through the darkness, high above the city.
Like sounds from a parallel universe. .
For me it's a deeply cherished phenomenon...."

Best from Amsterdam
P