Coral Bird 2013

James Jean made this intriguing "Coral Bird", and it feels like a window into a really different way of seeing. Look at how the colours push and pull – that coral red against the teal and yellows creates such a vibrant tension, like a visual hum. The texture is something else too; it's as if the bird and its surroundings are built from layers of organic growth, like capillaries expanding. I'm drawn to the way Jean handles line, which is almost like vein structures, maybe the root of the bird. It's as if he's thinking about the interconnectedness of things, how everything is linked, feeding into everything else. It reminds me of Hilma af Klint's botanical abstraction, except it's like Jean is looking through a microscope or into another dimension, one that's both beautiful and slightly unsettling. It's the kind of piece that keeps revealing itself the longer you look, embracing the ambiguity of nature and the imagination.