Margot McMahon Newell’s Shearwater (2024)

Margot McMahon
Newell’s Shearwater (2024)
Technique Mixte Oil on Canvas
6” X 12”
$1,750

Hawaiian Indigenous Endangered Birds

During a family vacation to Oahu in 2021, McMahon sketched endangered birds indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands. Returning to her studio, McMahon painted the birds through her Technique Mixte process. When the fires broke out in Maui in 2023, her painted birds took on special meaning as symbolic indicators of our earth’s fragile ecosystems. Her series of endangered indigenous birds brings awareness to the human and environmental factors that threaten avian populations in the Hawaiian Islands.

Newell’s Shearwater (‘A’o): in Hawaii is threatened by ocean fishing webs that reduce prey, habitat loss from invasive species and habitat degradation from feral pigs and goats, light pollution disorients fledglings causing fallout and introduced predators such as rats, cats, mongoose, and barn owls that eat eggs, chicks and adults.