Avian Entanglement

Exhibited at Under the Full Moon of Late Summer at Mote102, Oct-Nov 2025, featuring work by Emma Macleod and Emily Randall. (Invited artists as part of Mote102 selected programme).

In this series, hybrid human-bird figures perch precariously on branches. In folklore and fantasy, avian-humanoids are often imagined as powerful and untouchable—messengers, omens, or symbols of freedom and flight. The hybrids I’ve made resist this image. Instead, they are flightless, soft-bellied, drooping figures - quiet and melancholic. Their female forms hint at cycles of vulnerability: broken eggs, the weight of nesting, and the uneasy tension between fertility and fragility within an ecological crisis.

Images by Julie Howden

A surreal sculpture of a bird with a human body in a running pose on a branch with Spanish moss, set against a wooden background.
A humanoid sculpture with a bird's head and human body balancing on a branch with moss and Spanish moss, against a wooden wall background.
A creature with a bird's head and a naked human body sitting on a tree branch, with a wooden fence in the background.
Artistic sculpture of two monkeys with bird heads sitting on tree branches.
Two bird sculptures with human-like pink bodies and bird heads, perched on moss-covered stands against a wooden wall with chalk numbers faintly visible.
A surreal sculpture of a human body with a bird's head holding a small white ball, standing on a tree branch with moss and roots, against a plain background.
A humanoid figure with a bird's head and human body holding an eggshell, standing on a piece of wood with moss and lichen, against a textured beige background.
A person with a bird's head holding an eggshell with a bite taken out of it.
A sculpture of a person with a flamingo head, standing on a mossy mound and holding a ball, against a textured beige wall.
An indoor art installation featuring a beige, weathered wall with two hanging plant-themed sculptures of hands holding plants, a large flower arrangement on a wooden floor, and a door with a beaded curtain.
A small green hybrid human-bird figure sitting in a nest made of dried grass and surrounded by small white flowers with yellow centers.
A detailed miniature scene of a human-bird hybrid with a leaf tail, surrounded in a nest of dried leaves, flowers, and natural elements.
A detailed model of a human-bird hybrid with a leafy head, sitting in a nest made of twigs, leaves, and flowers, with a tiny egg nearby.
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