"Two Sides" Pictured with the unicorn the Hawaiian ʻōʻō (extinct).

Kristina Knowski’s ornithological artistic expression explores questions of extinction.

Kristina Knowski is a watercolor painter and an avid birder. She combines her talent and passion into realistic paintings of extinct birds, at once both haunting and beautiful.

As a child, Knowski was encouraged by her parents to develop her talent. She studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, starting with illustration, then switching to watercolor. The precise line work she learned while studying illustration really comes through in her watercolor work.

In one of Knowski’s early works, she painted a bushwren (a small bird native to New Zealand last seen in 1972) greeted by a unicorn. In the painting, Knowski explores the idea between the bird’s extinction and the imaginary creature. She compares the extinction of birds to the “what if” of the unicorn. She is nudging the viewer to ask, “what if the species becomes the lore of the unicorn, a fantasy?”

Knowski has a specific point of view she wants the viewer to consider. What if you were lost? What if you stopped being?

“There is a goal. A wide goal. It was about five years ago I realized I was obsessed with death,” says Knowski. “What does it mean to be in an abyss? I use these birds to work through my own fears.”

“I think it is important for people to question what they see as reality. Is it real? And if it isn’t then what is? If it is real, then what does that mean?” Knowski says, “I have a lot of questions. I like to explore the spaces of the unknown.”

And death is one of those places.

"Falling Eminence." The Sandhill Crane is known for a mating dance. In this painting Knowski imagines what the crane’s death dance might look like.

“I see when I paint an individual bird in death that I am memorializing that bird and honoring its life,” she says.

Knowski got into birding when she moved to the Michigan City area in 2014. At the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival there was a general call for volunteers to help the organization with their talents. Knowski answered and began designing posters for the festival in 2016. The sale of her posters help provide funds for the birding festival.

Stylistically these posters reflect the iconic images of South Shore travel posters from the 1920s. Each year, the poster depicts an endangered species, or the species the festival goers look for during the event. The 2022 poster highlights the Piping Plovers (federally endangered). She also includes a Michigan City landmark in the design. The goal of each poster is to get people excited for the Indiana Dunes Birding Festival. The 2022 poster features the Michigan City lighthouse.

Visit Knowski website

Knowski has a passion for birds. When she goes birding, she goes out early when most birds are more active. She typically is looking for a specific species each time. She uses the photos she takes while birding as source material for her paintings.

Knowski also studies the anatomy of birds to create a truer vision of the bird.

“I love anatomy,” she says. “It helps me to be a better birder and artist.”

She does not try to be fantastic with her use of color when painting birds. She wants each bird represented in the proper color. However, her backgrounds tend to be more liberal in use of color and form.

Kristina Knowski THE ABSENCE