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 )

Eurasian Starlings

The Carlyle Hotel NYC

Seen from Central Park

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

Yellow Billed Cuckoo

Pintail duck

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 )

Eastern Bluebird

The coffers differ stongly in size

some are open, some are closed

Ceiling Overview inmpression

Eastern Phoebe

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