The Captive Robin Exonerated and The Marriage of Robin and Columbine are the last two paintings in a series that took its inspiration fromThe Captive Robin by the great British faerie painter John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906). In his painting, faeries imprison a robin with a garland of flowers. Faeries, no fans of humans, were said to have a contentious relationship with robins because the birds had an alliance with humans –  they buried the bodies of people who died in the woods. My Captive Robin series focuses on the relationship between robins and humans and the travails and triumphs of a particular robin on a hero’s journey — he is falsely accused, tried, exonerated and then marries a human.

The Captive Robin, Exonerated, 2013
Gouache on paper