Birdcage

Emily McPhie’s portraits of women and children offer a window into her artistic education. The solemn, sweet little girl in “Birdcage,” for example, would look perfectly at home with a collection of early American paintings. “Birds often represent the soul or spirit in my paintings,” says the artist. The birdcage itself is empty, but if we look closely we can find the bird printed on the little girl’s dress—has her soul broken free just as the bird? Birdcage invites us to look deeper into our own hearts and imaginations to find the answer.