Jeffrey Morabito: Birds and Flowers, Vases and Windows On view through March 1 at SFA Projects A detail from the precious image. From the Press Release: Dating back to 10th -century China, bird-and-flower painting is a genre of painting that consists not only of birds and flowers, but plants, fish, insects, dogs and cats. Because of his multiracial heritage, residing in many different countries through his career, Morabito’s artistic identity is deeply grounded in both the Chinese and Italian traditions. As both cultural insider and observational voyeur, Morabito is compelled to reexamine said traditions to find new modes of deconstruction, examination, and interpretation. Why is a flower important when placed side by side with an animal? Is it a symbol of personal or universal beauty? Can quotidian modern objects like tennis balls be recast as a stand in for the flower in contemporary life? Morabito recreates the bird-and-flower genre by seeing objects as pictorial con...