Valerie Rangel

Popular films inspire themes for my artwork and music is a necessity when I am hand cutting paper. Lyrics and monologues from film characters are like seeds that have taken root in my thought process and influence my expression through art.

The power of music imbues our spirit, stimulates emotions, and ignites passions. People gravitate to the language of musical genres like birds of a feather that form a flock, flight, murmuration, clutch, or volery. Like people, birds are found all over the world, in all countries, and almost all habitats. Birds serve as emissaries of the world because of their sensitive nature to ecological changes.

In the late 1880s caged canaries were taken underground with miners to detect dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide which is colorless and odorless. The death of a canary provided an alarm for miners and thus saved many human lives. Different species of birds across the globe provide a warning system — mine canaries for the whole planet.

This papercut exhibition pays homage to the birds that are raising our awareness of the state of nature, climate change-driven threats such as rising temperatures, habitat loss, and degradation of the natural world.