Original artwork description:

This is a large scale abstracted and impressionistic version of a cockatoo, one of Australia's native birds.
This painting is quite different for me and special in the way it came about. It actually started off as a semi abstract landscape! I know...!
I was preparing for an exhibition and thinking about "Charlie" who was a wild bird rescued from birth by an elderly couple. They looked after him for many years. Charlie learned to speak and was their constant companion at home. Sadly the husband passed away and his lovely wife needed to go into permanent care. So, Charlie was looking for a new home. He wasn't able to be released into the wild as he had spent too many years in captivity. So... as I painted my abstracted landscape, Charlie just seemed to start to appear. I didn't see it at first until I accidentally looked at the paintings reflection in a mirror - and there he was! Anyway...from then on I had no choice but to develop the painting as a legacy to Charlie Cockatoo.

I am a great animal lover and have raised native wildlife as well as my lovely rescue dog, my poodle and various rescue cats over the years.

I like the idea of being able to take a journey with a painting.
My work always takes me on an explorative adventure, allowing the painting to take me where it wants to go. In the end it becomes a destination and a place where I’m happy to spend time and just exist within the painting. It's then that I know the painting is finished.

This one though, was the biggest surprise! But, I'm glad my subconscious came through. Charlie is immortalised here but he still has a long time to enjoy life (Cockatoos usually live for at least 50 years). He has found a new home and I hope he enjoys flying around and having plenty of new adventures there - as that's how I see him in this painting.

He is stretched on a wooden frame with a deep gallery edge of 3cm.
The actual picture is continued around the side edges, so no need to frame if you don't wish to.
It has D hooks on the back, ready for hanging.

Materials used:

Oil & Acrylic on Linen. Stretched on deep edge gallery profile frame

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