Playing on our tendency to read ourselves into everything, and by gliding over the constructed distinction between human and animal, Armstrong’s portraits invite reflection on cocky displays of character and personality, and posit instances of interspecies cross-identification.
Jaded city-slickers might titter at his obsession with feathered friends. But how different is a county fair to an art fair? And who or what determines what is a ‘serious’ painterly subject?
In this way, Armstrong’s series of bright cockerels speaks to: the idea of perceptive nuance; what we each choose to value or prize and why; and, the question of what company we like to keep.
