Perfection is a Bird in a Cage (La perfección es un pájaro enjaulado), 2023.

Ink on acid-free paper, 101.5 x 66.5 cm.

This drawing of 411 feathers I found on April 26, 2022 on Calle Rufina Alfaro (Panamá) is at once evidence of a violent incident and also of a life. I didn't find a corpse, so there is a glimmer of uncertainty as to the bird's fate, but how many feathers can a bird lose? The organization of the feathers by size is like an archaeology of a dead bird, a way of trying to record and understand past events via physical remnants, but there is a frustrating gap between the analytical and the emotive; the impossibility of recreating the essence of a living thing.

* "Because living like a robot is undoubtedly suicide. When everyone is the same, everyone is no one. Perfection is a bird in a cage that lives, eats, shits, and dies for the sole purpose of being admired. I want to live free, plucked, cold, malnourished, but free." - Charles Bukowski