During the month of February, New York-based artist Janelle Iglesias will be using the Lightwell Gallery in the UB Art Gallery, Center for the Arts as a studio, developingIN HIGH FEATHER, a site-specific project inspired by her recent travels throughout Bali, Raja Ampat and West Papua, Indonesia.

The UB Art Gallery, Center for the Arts is open Tuesday through Friday 11 AM to 5 PM; Saturday 1 to 5 PM. For information, please call 716-645-6913. The exhibition, which is free and open to the public, will be on view in the Lightwell Gallery through May 10, 2014.

Through a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant, the artist journeyed to the Arfak Mountains in search of the most sophisticated avian architecture on earth—the bower of the Vogelkomp bowerbird. To attract female mates, the males of the species demonstrate incredible construction prowess and astonishing aesthetics as they adorn their bowers with collections of a wide array of natural and manmade materials found in their immediate surroundings.

Iglesias links her interest in the birds to her own practice–– in which familiar objects are poetically reconfigured into different mechanized systems, ecosystems, constellations or simple displays. Exploring how objects and materials carry meaning as well as our desire to find metaphor and order in the stuff around us, she is equally fascinated by the personal taxonomies of collections and the mind-boggling amounts of matter that is thoughtlessly thrown away. She describes collection and up-cycling as key parts of her practice as the materials and objects she uses contribute layers of meaning into the installations themselves. For Iglesias’ entirely new two-story installation in the Lightwell Gallery she will incorporate images and field recordings from her travels as well as materials sourced locally––such as discarded Christmas trees and cereal boxes.