Antique china, ceramic figurines and pottery shards decorate a mosaic birdhouse suitable only for royal inhabitants. Joan Bankemper’s Bird Palace is a tribute to the bird’s regal position within the delicate balance of a natural ecosystem. Inside the palace doors lie four rooms, each dedicated to a different aspect of a bird’s life. One room is dedicated to bathing, another to feeding and another to nurturing, each view blending nature with humanity and causing viewers to consider their own place in Mother Nature.

About the artist: Originally from Kentucky, Joan Bankemper completed a BFA at the Kansas City Art Institute and an MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Bankemper now resides in New York. Her work includes ceramic sculpture, garden installations and community-based urban planting projects that all blur the boundaries between nature and art and encourage people to recognize nature and neighborhood in their surroundings. Her work has been featured at the Abington Art Center in Pennsylvania and the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum in Boston, and at galleries in Italy, Paris and New York.

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