Parrots with Pearls, 2026

Augustina Droze  

A lush explosion of color fills the frame in “Parrots with Pearls". Exotic birds nestle within a dense thicket of blooms. The composition breathes with a Roccoco spirit. Abundance defines every inch of the canvas. Vibrant petals in crimson, gold, and violet create a sensory overload. Three parrots emerge from the floral chaos. Their plumage echoes the vivid hues of the surrounding nature. 
Strings of luminous pearls drape across the scene. They wind around the birds and weave through the flowers. This juxtaposition blends natural beauty with human artifice. The artist uses these creatures as symbolic narrators. The atmosphere feels dreamlike and immersive. It captures a world that is simultaneously bewildering and exquisite. 
The technique emphasises rich textures and saturated tones. Each brushstroke enhances the three-dimensional quality of the petals. Light dances across the iridescent feathers and the smooth surface of the pearls. The artwork reflects a fusion of Eastern and Western influences. It transforms a botanical study into a modern mythology. The scene concludes with a delicate balance of organic forms and structured elegance.

The contemporary artist Augustina Droze uses animals as symbols to describe her personal lived experiences. Her current body of work explores her life as a foreigner, her gaze upon the world as exotic, beautiful and bewildering. As an expat living in Beijing for the past ten years and currently in Barcelona, Droze's work incorporates elements of East and West. Her swirling, dream-like paintings are colourful and confrontational, brimming with Rococo inspired abundance. She creates her own modern mythology, a storybook land where she is the other in a very other worldly landscape. Droze has exhibited in galleries and museums internationally in numerous shows, notably the Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York (2014), Banaras Hindu University as Fulbright Senior Scholar, Varanasi, India (2017), the Beijing US Embassy as Distinguished Art Envoy (2022), London Biennale (2023), Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum (2024) and Carrousel du Louvre (2025).