Drake

The wing is carved. That changes everything.

Most tufted work earns its depth through pile alone; here the drake's wing rides over the body in sculpted relief, so the bird actually stands off the wall. Cream shoulder, brown coverts, the blue speculum flashing between black and white bars - the one part of a mallard that looks designed gets the most dimensional treatment.

Behind him the scene goes cubist: a red sun scored with black rules, gray-green bands of horizon, a ground plane shattered into blue and gray triangles. The bird is all field-guide fidelity - bottle-green head, white collar, chestnut breast, orange feet - standing in a landscape that gave up on realism entirely. He doesn't seem to mind.

A sculpted cream border traces the whole silhouette and squares it off, part frame, part halo, keeping the composition one object instead of a bird pasted on a backdrop.

Drake holds the tension between taxidermy and toy - anatomically earnest, structurally playful, a specimen mounted in a world made of shapes.

He's a piece in the Birdhaus series - forms over feathers - the red sun and its black bars carried from screen into pile.