Allen de Carteret

ALLEN DE CARTERET

LETTERS TO A BIRD

October 8 - October 25, 2025

Letters to a Bird is a search for language to articulate fragile membrane of connection, visualising an empathy of looking and listening.

In his appearance in the film, ”The Last Ride”, about homelessness in his country, Tom Waits Says ..”you can’t write a letter to a bird”. On hearing this I thought of Giotto’s 13th century image of St Francis preaching to the birds also wondering if the birds were at the same time preaching to him.

Making a painting is in some cultures referred to as writing an image. With this in mind the paintings in this exhibition propose a counterpoint to Tom Waits declaration, they are letters to a bird.

Visual equivalents to folk song or children’s rhyme. Murmurations in porous silhouettes. Dispersed amongst the recent images are an array of work demonstrating a 40 year conversation with what anthropologist Michael Taussig referred to as ‘the musicality of the landscape’. The paper works, in particular, are inspried by bike rides along the Darebin creek into the city.

Cheers,

Allen