By
Noel Hefele
Piece description from the artist
“Riparian Melody: A Louisiana Waterthrush at Tibbetts Brook” intertwines art, technology, and ecology. In April 2020, among 40,000 iNaturalist observations from Van Cortlandt Park, one report of a Louisiana Waterthrush—rare for this elevated area—caught my attention. Investigating this unique sighting, I frequently visited the location, finding no immediate water sources. Utilizing GPT-4, I analyzed a 200-meter radius of data from iNaturalist, which suggested that the bird could have been seeking a nesting site, indicating a diverse and healthy ecosystem. DALL-E 3 generated visual interpretations of the habitat, informed by the iNaturalist data, but defaulted to a generic thrush, possibly due to a data deficiency for the specific species.
I consulted GPT-4 on methods to encourage the Louisiana Waterthrush’s return to Van Cortlandt Park’s forests, informing our volunteer restoration activities. The final painting was done with Gansai watercolors, a medium new to me, providing a fresh perspective to my work.
This art reflects a synthesis of AI analysis and field observations, aiming to support an environment where the Louisiana Waterthrush can prosper once more. As we strive to unearth Tibbetts Brook, we hope that our restoration efforts will herald the return of this bird to the Bronx.
Noel Hefele is a talented landscape painter with a diverse background in the arts. Born and raised in Norwalk, Connecticut, he received his BFA from Carnegie Mellon University in 2002 and later earned a MA in Arts and Ecology from a school in England. Throughout his career, Noel has had the opportunity to exhibit his work internationally and has pieces in numerous private collections. He has also served on the board of the non-profit community arts organization PLGarts in Brooklyn, New York and co-teaches a graduate course at Brooklyn College called Human Tracks in the Urban Landscape. In 2013 and 2014, Noel was the Artist in Residence at the Barbuda Archeological Research center in the Caribbean.
Currently, Noel resides and works in the Bronx, New York where he is in the process of exploring Van Cortlandt Park and creating a new body of work. As an artist, Noel believes in the power of art to help us move towards a more responsible and holistic understanding of the environment. He sees the landscape as an entangled field of relationships that includes humans, animals, plants, minerals, and more, and believes that by viewing the non-human world as more than just objects, we can take responsibility for our impact on the planet and recognize that we are not the sole subjects of the Earth's narrative. Through his art, Noel aims to collaborate with the landscape in order to produce effects in himself and others, aesthetically and emotionally reconfiguring the way we see the world.
For more information and to see more of Noel's work, visit www.facebook.com/NoelHefeleStudios.
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