This artwork is about the tragedy with swallows in 1974 during the autumn migration. Climate changes provoked unusually cold autumn that year, and some swallows started migrating earlier. It was getting colder and colder, and swallows didn’t find enough food and energy to continue migration. They stopped in the Alps mountains. As a result, a few million swallows died. This catastrophe had a big impact on the total swallow population. And we can see the consequences even now, 35+ years after the tragedy. The barn swallows lose a big part of their population, and most of these birds migrate earlier now. Cyclical patterns were changed forever.
The human impact wasn’t direct for this catastrophe. We had the role of big invisible (for swallows) spirits who changed their life without any warnings. That’s why I added white anthropomorphic lines behind swallows. The woman on the left is a glacier spirit; she already froze part of the barn swallow population; they become blue and forever stay in the Alps. The next part of the swallows’ population is migrating, and the spirit on the dark blue cloud is a Death who notices these birds. The Death has a mask on its eyes and a scythe, her traditional tool. She doesn’t see who flies away behind her, but she always is ready to kill them. Death is a climate, and it doesn’t choose who will die due to inevitable changes provoked by humans.
Materials: watercolors on 300 g watercolor paper.
It can be used with or without passe-partout
Unframed
