Kat Lyons
The City (June 6, 2023), 2023
Oil on canvas
152.4 x 203.2 cm
60 x 80 in
60 x 80 in
Copyright The Artist
Further images
The City (June 6, 2023) refers to the wildfire smoke that engulfed the city of New York in the summer of 2023. Enshrouding the cityscape in a miasmic orange, the...
The City (June 6, 2023) refers to the wildfire smoke that engulfed the city of New York in the summer of 2023. Enshrouding the cityscape in a miasmic orange, the painting dramatises the daily experiences of pigeons in urban environments. Pigeons are a synanthropic animal – species that are born wild but live in close association, and benefit from human activities – and yet they are an ambivalent presence in most urban centres, both beloved and despised. The pigeon and the intrusion of climate disaster occuring many miles away collapse the city’s demarcated limits, and any sense of its separateness from ‘wild’ places.