Petah Coyne’s Untitled #922 (The Strange Bird) Exhibited in You Know Who at Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion, Turkey

Untitled #922 (The Strange Bird), 1997-98. (Photo: Wit McKay. Courtesy of the artist)

Renowned American artist Petah Coyne’s Untitled #922 (The Strange Bird), is currently shown in You Know Who, an exhibition curated by Selen Ansen and Brigitte Pitarakis at the Abdülmecid Efendi Mansion in Istanbul, Turkey. The exhibition showcases works of over 45 artists and explores the connection between Byzantium and the contemporary art through the theme of supernatural and their effects on human emotions, behaviors, and artistic production.

Untitled #922 (The Strange Bird), created in 1997-98, is an example of the hair and taxidermy works Coyne made in the late 1990s that explore a dark fantasy world populated by animals. Tangled in web of woven black hair, the once recognizable silhouettes of the taxidermied birds have been reimagined as a fantastic, amalgamated creature, whose web, reminiscent of black Irish lace and dust bunnies, crawls out toward viewers

Petah Coyne is scheduled to have her new solo exhibition at Nunu Fine Art, Taipei, in May 2023.