Hurt Bird was part of Stussy’s master’s degree project, which was based on the subject of the bird catcher. An injured bird flaps its wings and screams for help, to no avail. The lines and washes enveloping the bird isolate and confine him. The story of Icarus and the image of men and animals constrained in boxes continued to fascinate Stussy, whose mature images are often distorted or disquieting. Even an early work such as Hurt Bird reveals a striving for a transcendental quality: " Painting for me is the slow unraveling of an endless mystery," explained the artist.
Hurt Bird recalls the art of ALBERT PINKHAM RYDER and Morris Graves (born 1910), two romantic artists, who, like Stussy, painted dead or dying birds and used the evocative formal elements of line and color. Stussy was as much a draftsman as a painter, having become interested in calligraphy as early as 1947, and line dominates many of his paintings. Moreover, when he used color, as in Hurt Bird, it is secondary to the graphic elements. In this watercolor the palette is limited and was applied in delicate tints, the lines and washes forming transparent, intersecting planes.
Stussy’s fractured planes and use of color tints were influenced by Macdonald-Wright, who also probably introduced Stussy to oriental mysticism.
