Bruce the tiny Vancouver parrot lands internet fame with abstract art

Mononymous painter Bruce has carved a lucrative niche on social media with his abstract artworks, crafted entirely from the colourful juices of fruits.

Mononymous painter Bruce has carved a lucrative niche on social media with his abstract artworks, crafted entirely from the colourful juices of fruits. He has garnered over 37,000 Instagram followers, and is revelling in a wave of Tumblr fame. His works - vivid, contemporary, bold - have been published across two separate books.

Bruce, age 17, is also a parrot.

The green-and-blue patched parrotlet is one of 10 birds to gain online fame after their owner, Vancouver resident Tina Kirmis, began posting videos and meme-worthy photographs of her feathered friends to Instagram page @follow_the_feathers.

Among them were videos of Bruce in his "berry-eating dome", a glass structure designed by Kirmis to protect her kitchen walls from the bird’s messy eating habits.

Videos show Bruce demolishing his berries with such gusto that bits splatter around the dome, leaving Jackson Pollock-esque paintings on the sheets of paper she leaves underneath.

People “just can’t get enough” of the videos, says Kirmis, and Bruce, unbeknownst to him, has become a breakout star.

Kirmis, who volunteers with Vancouver’s Greyhaven Exotic Bird Sanctuary and has adopted 17 beaked companions thus far, says she finds it impossible to leave behind a bird in need.