From afar, the two works by Milly Peck appear like diminutive buildings rising above the ground on coloured posts, but as the visitor draws near their optical solidity is revealed as a 2D theatrical staging, where empty windows function as viewfinders. These flat architectural paintings are locations of folly where suburban birdfeeders are hung, mimicking the ornate birdcages of the fifteenth and sixteenth aristocracy, which were often to the detriment of the health of the birds.

Influenced by drawings of residential building made on a recent residency undertaken at the British School at Rome, Peck utilises this slip between the 2D and 3D as a dramatic device to explore elements of fakery and imitation present within the everyday domestic environment, cropping viewpoints and presenting prop-like construction to open up performative liveness where the natural animation provided by the feeding birds activate this cartoonish work.

Milly Peck (b. 1990) is a British artist working across painting, sculpture, drawing and installation. currently living and working in London. She holds an MA in Sculpture from The Royal College of Art (2014-16) and a BFA from The Ruskin School of Art, Oxford University in 2012.