Great auk egg

(oil on canvas, 18x24cm, wooden frame) - As humans arrived with boats and hunger, the great auk’s (Pinguinus impennis) fearlessness became fatal. It was taken for meat, for oil, for feathers to fill pillows, and finally for curiosity: its eggs collected, its body stuffed and displayed under glass. By 1844, the last known pair was killed on a small Icelandic island, ending a lineage that had endured for ages. Today, the great auk survives only in these pointy, uniquely speckled eggs, in bones, skins, and drawings, a heavy absence where a living presence once stood. This extinct bird is a reminder of how easily wonder can vanish when it is treated as endless.