Sooty Shearwater (2023)

While walking along the beach in Long Island, I came across four dead shearwaters lying side by side, washed up on the shore. I had never witnessed anything like it before. Their deaths were most likely caused by avian flu. There was something striking about seeing all four birds lifeless together. It stirred a creative impulse in me to build a memorial and also raise awareness

Since this was my first sculpture of a bird made from found materials, I decided to create a life sized replica of one of the birds from the pile, using debris I had gathered from the beach. I took videos of the birds from different angles, and sketched a study of them.