Hummingbird

Robert Lostutter’s bird-men can be viewed as elaborations on the long western tradition of illustrated natural histories, from medieval bestiaries to the 19^th century lithographs published by artist-ornithologists John James Audubon and John Gould. But in many ways, his hybrid creations also recall the myths and religions in all parts of the world in which sexual unions between (male) gods and (female) humans produced offspring that were part-human, part-beast, and part-divine.

Beginning as masks, Lostutter’s hybrid facial plumage evolved and became integrated in the figure’s physicality, literally bonding to the human face, quills penetrating the skin. For the artist it presented an opportunity of calling attention to a profound relation with birds and, by extension, with the natural world: “We are these birds. They are part of us.” Motivated partly out of conservation concerns for disappearing bird species, Lostutter’s work appeals to a deeper structure that connects humans emotionally to birds through color, which has the power to stimulate and to seduce both species to propagate. The philosophy of art has a long tradition of elevating the disinterested appreciation of beautiful forms over the purposefulness of seduction. However, in Lostutter’s imagery of exotic hybrids, purposeful eroticism and purposive beauty co-exist.