The relationship between nature and man (as far as the two entities can justifiably be separated) is often somewhat of a bad marriage. Inextricably dependent on one another, each wields immense destructive power over the other. Lynch sides with nature, questioning man’s tendency for claiming ownership over the natural world, yet focuses his criticism on the subject with both humor and great sensitivity.

Image from Everything's Going South on Bunnywax

One room of the exhibit is entirely occupied by heavily abstracted bird sculptures resting atop wooden installations that appear to be docks. Their bodies are modeled in a graceful but general way and painted either solid black or white. Visually appealing but nondescript, they direct attention to the heads of the birds, which rest on thin wooden stalks. The beaks are held to the heads by a wire like masks, which stands out for two reasons: First, the hard line of the wire is immediately noticeable as it rudely interrupts the smooth organic shapes composing the rest of the bird. Second, it is the only part of the piece where Lynch makes his process evident, yet the beaks are too heavy to be believably tied in place so easily. Thus, the use of wire comes across as especially deliberate and therefore, significant.

A few of the birds have broken or bizarrely shaped beaks, which reads as both funny and sad as though these few were incompetent in fooling us. Alone, the bird series is hard to assign specific meaning to; that they are disguising themselves gives them a human quality that makes them seem like vehicles for the portrayal of certain emotions, especially where two birds are conjoined at the body but their heads face in different directions. The next room, however, elaborates on the animal theme. More bird heads line the walls, though these have no bodies and appear more like hunting trophies. A bar, complete with beer tap and stools is installed against an entire wall, drink coasters painted to resemble bulls-eyes, tap handles replaced by a piece of bone and the butt of a shotgun. Especially compelling is a small frame mounted on the wall behind the bar containing the flattened bodies of several mosquitoes arranged painstakingly into lines. Compared to the bigger game surrounding it on all walls (including a life-sized moose head), this seems a bit juvenile; the bug collection of a little boy hung beside his father’s hunting trophies. Yet all the pieces in the second room are related by a human presence. They are all parts of nature being claimed, manipulated, and put on display.

This brings a clearer meaning to the birds, who now read as potential trophy heads for the collection in the other room. Their beak masks are disguises, as each species of bird attempts to fool the hunter into mistaking it for another type. The birds, not knowing which is most valuable, try on an amalgamation of all different beaks. On the wall in the next room, however, some of the cleverest disguises (i.e. a bird with an amorphous chunk of wood strapped to its nose not resembling a break at all) appear on the mounted bodies of the trophy birds. This speaks to the arbitrary rules that seem to govern what is valuable to a human predator. The hunting and killing of an animal sometimes appears to be an expression of superiority and power (the gigantic mounted moose head), sometimes an assertion of ownership (the framed bug collection), and sometimes a sort of competition (gold medallions with fish carcasses preserved inside). Lynch humorously but critically exposes all of these motivations, most notably and extensively through the birds with whose human-like masquerade we sympathize.