Lake Street Studios features Jessica Kovan Aug. 21 opening reception

From staff reports

Lake Street Studios Center Gallery in Glen Arbor opens an exhibit on Friday, Aug. 21, featuring artist Jessica Kovan and her work “It’s All About Love,” which uses birds not so much as symbols of flight, but as a way to consider connection, compassion, and our shared responsibility to the natural world.

For Kovan, birds are not simply visual subjects, but reminders of our interconnectedness with all living things.

“Birds are a metaphor for me representing our human connectedness to all beings,” said Kovan. “They represent the possibility of extending love and compassion to all species that we share the planet with.”

Her work explores care, vulnerability, and climate change.

“Birds have become my link to everything else,” she said. “It’s about every parent wanting what is best for their children. It’s about every living thing being somebody’s baby at one time. It’s about taking care of the world and each other. It’s all about love.”

The contrast is part of what makes the coincidence so compelling. In “Taking Flight,” birds become vehicles for ideas of transcendence, transformation, freedom, and personal experience. In Kovan’s work, they point instead toward our ties to the natural world and to one another. The same familiar creatures become vessels for very different kinds of meaning.

“I believe birds remind us to look up. To notice beauty. To pause,” Kovan said.

“It’s All About Love” also opens Aug. 21, with a reception from 6-8 pm at Center Gallery and will be on view through Thursday, Aug. 27.