Birds have long held a fascination for artist Roland Nancarrow, and some of his earliest memories are of his grandfather’s aviary and a particular cockatoo that was his Pop Stacey’s favourite pet. 

While birds are evident in some of his early works, it was not until 2001, while working on a public art commission for the Cleveland Detention Centre that he consciously began to focus on birds in his paintings and sculptures. He attributes this to the experience of working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at the facility who incorporated birds in their artworks, as totems and as a cultural reference to homelands. 

During the early 2000s, Nancarrow completed several public art works, many of which featured birds, and in 2015 he created a new series of sculptural installations entitled From the Waters that explored aspect of the annual migration of Torres Strait pigeons to Cairns.

Coupled with his fascination for birds, Nancarrow has an enduring passion for the tropics and on a trip to South America he turned his attention to the relationship between tropical birds and plant life. On returning to Cairns, he increasingly studied local birds, their habitats, family relationships and breeding habits. The works in this exhibition are a celebration of the unique species of birds that inhabit the Far North Queensland region, and a commentary on the artist’s deep concern for the effects of global warming on bird populations around the world.

The works in this exhibition, as well as additional pieces, are available to purchase through the online Collector's Exhibition.