Ngirungiru by Don Binney

The bird and landscape are visually connected, the curves and sweep of landscape echoing closely the plump forms of the perching bird. In a 1983 interview, Binney explained how works like this painting link to ornithology: "I think a characteristic of this, and a lot of work from this period, is the structural coordination of bird and land form… Physical resonance between one shape and the other. Why? Because as an ornithologist I've always been thoroughly involved in the way in which land, the environment the creature lives in, modifies the creature. The creature also of course modifies the land: it's symbiosis really, isn't it?" In 1964 one newspaper reviewer commented that "The search for a New Zealand identity is something that is now influencing all the arts in this country …Toss Woollaston and Colin McCahon continue to contribute to [the tradition of national identity], but after them, who else? My choice would be Don Binney, whose first one-man show showed an understanding of the peculiar rhythms that go to make the New Zealand landscape."