Peaceable Kingdom of Birds by Daniel Bonilla

Painted: 10/14/2024

About the Mural: This vibrant mural, set in the historic Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem, features a menagerie of 17 birds across a color-blocked backdrop. The work spans a retaining wall behind a co-op building, and was designed in honor of Sandra Spannan, a former resident who passed away in 2021 after a career in painting and building restoration. “She loved birds, and she loved nature, and she loved art,” says Tamara Lynch, a co-op board member who helped organize the project. “It’s a beautiful tribute. It’s just exactly how she was: authentic and artistic.”

Artist Daniel Bonilla selected this avian assortment with an eye toward color—from the bold orange shades of the Varied Thrush to the rich blues of the Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay. “Whatever the subject is, I want it to be colorful, and vibrant, and to spark a conversation,” Bonilla says. He’s already seen those conversations in action: Throughout the week and a half he was painting, people from across the neighborhood stopped by to share their thoughts and enthusiasm for the mural. “People took ownership of the birds,” he says.

Lynch also appreciates the mural's power to brighten up the community at large. She sees public art as a way to inject color and life into the urban environment when the steel and brick start to feel oppressive. “It changes neighborhoods,” Lynch says. “It changes the way people feel about themselves within their neighborhoods. And it's a quiet way you can uplift people.”

About the Birds: The piece features a range of birds from across the continent. From left to right, they are: Acorn Woodpecker, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Short-billed Gull, Varied Thrush, Kentucky Warbler, American Goshawk, Mute Swan, Yellow-eyed Junco, Red-crowned Parrot, American Tree Sparrow, Scott's Oriole, Cassin's Finch, Hook-billed Kite, Blue-winged Warbler, Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, Black Swift, Short-eared Owl.

All of these varied species face threats from a changing climate. The Broad-tailed Hummingbird, a jewel of the Western mountains, could lose 69 percent of its summer range if warming continues at its current pace, according to Audubon’s Survival By Degrees report. Meanwhile, the fierce and elusive American Goshawk could largely be pushed into the outskirts of Northern Canada, while the Yellow-eyed Junco, with its piercing gaze and trilling song, may be left with only small pockets of habitat in the forests of Mexico. Taking action to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, however, can help preserve broader stretches of habitat for these species to thrive across the continent.

About the Artist: Daniel Bonilla, or “Art Man Dan,” is an artist born and raised in New York City who’s been fascinated by murals since childhood. After studying illustration and computer animation and working in the film industry, he honed his large-scale art skills at Colossal Media, a company for hand-painted outdoor advertisements. 

During the pandemic, Bonilla and his friends began painting murals on boarded-up restaurants across the neighborhood. “We weren’t really getting paid,” he says. “We were just doing it for the love of the murals, and for the love of art.” That work, however, helped him get the recognition to launch a career as a full-time freelance artist. Since then, his commissions have included walls and windows for local businesses, doors at a Bronx high school, and a portion of a subway tunnel for the NYC Department of Transportation. 

Though painting on such large scales has its challenges, Bonilla says, it also offers a unique opportunity to engage the community and share the power of art with the public. “I think what draws me to doing these things is just the sheer size of them,” Bonilla says. “Like, why not beautify a space?”