Acclaimed science illustrator picked to paint new Philly birds mural in Fishtown

When visual artist and science illustrator Jane Kim recently toured Philadelphia’s John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, she was struck by the abundance and diversity of birds she found.

Kim, whose avian artwork blends classical science illustration with modern fine art, spotted over 30 species during her daylong excursion. Everything from turkey vultures and nighthawks, to osprey and catbirds, to swallows and a juvenile bald eagle. She now hopes to incorporate paintings of those feathered creatures into her upcoming Fishtown mural on Philadelphia birdlife.

Slated for completion next spring, the yet-to-be titled installation is part of Drexel’s Academy of Natural Sciences ongoing “Illuminating Birds” exhibition, a celebration of contemporary avian illustration in partnership with the Mural Arts of Philadelphia. Kim’s commissioned mural will highlight the “wide variety of birds found in Philadelphia and their fascinating connections to local ecologies, watersheds, and neighborhoods,” the museum said in its announcement.

In a phone interview from her Ink Dwell studio in Half Moon Bay, Cal., Kim said she hopes the public artwork will capture the richness of Philadelphia’s avian ecosystem, which is defined by the many birds that migrate through the city every spring and fall.

“I love the idea of celebrating the seasonality of Philly,” Kim said. “It’s really about the movement, the coming and going, and yet there’s just this anchor of deep history.”

Kim, who studied printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design and earned a master’s certificate in science illustration from California State University, has created large-scale public art across the country. She is best known for her Wall of Birds mural at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The 3000-square-foot mural features 243 birds, spanning 375 million years of avian evolution. In 2017, Kim painted Flora From Fauna, a series of six murals in Redwood City, Calif., commemorating the city’s lost chrysanthemum industry, which had flourished during the 1920s, when Japanese immigrants were growing and exporting the flower. The industry was decimated by the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Kim is painting her Fishtown mural on parachute cloth, a nonwoven fabric that can then be adhered, almost like wallpaper, to a wall of a mixed-use building at 2331 Frankford Ave., she said.

“This allows me to produce the mural in my studio here in California and then ship the painted cloth back to Philly,” she said, noting that the technique results in a shorter installation period than hand-painting. She plans on releasing a draft of the mural in October.

Though centered on plant and animal life, Kim’s work often includes a symbolic connection to its human backdrop. Her Philly mural will include a depiction of the Nuttals mudflower, a subaquatic plant with tiny white flowers, which is the only plant native to Pennsylvania now extinct. Kim learned of the flower during a recent week-long residency at the Academy of Natural Sciences, which she spent researching, designing, and teaching workshops. Specimens of the flower were last collected along the banks of the Delaware River in nearby Kensington.

“I’m excited to be able to share that story,” she said.