B is for Birds in the Bronx

2006 Bronx Park East (2, 5) New York City Transit

“B is for Birds in the Bronx,” a series of faceted glass windscreen panels, was inspired by the birds that populate the Bronx. While they aren’t always noticed, birds are present in our urban environment, filling the air with song and the sky with flight. The artist, Candida Alvarez makes the birds prominent through her use of scale and composition, placing the birds in the foreground but almost treating the birds as negative space. As Alvarez explained, "I wanted to subvert them by making them white, and make them invisible, large and regal. The birds in their emptiness give attention to their transparency and how they hold a space for the trees, the bushes, the snow, the branches, the wind, the sky, and the leaves to exist, like a still-life painting... where the space outside of the object, really creates the form of the object... "