Passenger III

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This drawing was included in George Boorujy’s 2014 solo exhibition at P·P·O·W gallery, "Passenger", for which the artist created a series of large-scale drawings that encourage viewers to grapple with the impact that humans have on our environment. Each drawing in the series features an animal staring directly at the viewer, rendered in highly accurate detail and with individual personality, echoing the feeling and scale of a human portrait. "Passenger III" is a large portrait of two birds, one of which is looking at the viewer with an unnervingly human-like expression and pose. The artist has stated, “When I represent animals, I meet them on their own terms and don’t present something idealized or standardized, because nothing is perfect.” Much of Boorujy’s work depicts animals whose fate has been largely determined by the human population. Passenger III is one of several artworks where the artist has rendered passenger pigeons in intricate detail. Once the most numerous bird species on the planet, its demise not only marked man’s impact on the planet but also has the distinction of being the first recording of an extinction of a species in real time. Passenger pigeons lived throughout the eastern United States, but primarily around the Great Lakes. The last wild passenger pigeon was confirmed to have been shot in southern Ohio in 1900, and the last captive pigeon was housed at the Cincinnati Zoo, linking this species strongly with the state of Ohio.4 This animal is significant to the state of Ohio, making its inclusion in an Ohio museum particularly relevant.