Ontogeny Recapitulates Philogeny

Once upon a time, humans lived on family farms and in villages. Humans raised chickens for sustenance and pleasure. It was an honest relationship, built upon natural cycles.

In her exhibit, Fowl Brood, Seattle painter Britt Freda celebrates the chicken, Gallus gallus. The show opens March 6 at Vashon Island’s new gallery, VALISE, at 17633 Vashon Highway SW.



Ms. Freda’s paintings depict exquisite birds, like the Belgian Mille Fleur and the Cochin Blue. The ancient breeds were as culturally distinctive as our ancestors. But this exhibit is more than an Ah-Shucks! homage to our feathered flocks.

I paint an up-close perspective of insects (honeybees) and agricultural animals, central to our human food chain, whose existence, evolution and future are being jeopardized by our cultural addiction to abundant consumption. Nature is bountiful, a land flowing with milk and honey, and resilient, but pushed out of balance essential components of our ecosystem are rapidly dying.

In a nod of approval to our provincial kin, Ms. Freda’s paintings contemplate chickens as symbols of self-reliance. Will we allow ourselves to become human versions of the industrial Leghorn broiler, living unfulfilled in cages? Or can we re-evolve to virtuous creatures?

I believe that the cracks in life are stuffed with surprise and the simplest of things, sometimes even chickens, are secretly studded with precious gems, tangible only to those who take the time to stumble. I believe that wealth is abundant when the common black of night, or an inky rooster, is jeweled by the light of places we imagine.

This is a show about the beauty of truth and our own natural cycles. The show runs through March.