Original Painting for Bird Week Exhibition / Currently Exhibiting at Wattle & Bee

This artwork is part of the Bird Week Exhibition, an annual art exhibition supporting BirdLife Australia. The theme this year ‘From the Ground Up’ explores the crucial connection between birds and trees.

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The Southern Cassowary is a keystone species for their role in dispersing seeds throughout the rainforest. They eat fallen fruit, swallowing it whole then digesting the fruit and excreting the seeds intact throughout large areas of the rainforest. They quite literally plant the trees that provide them with food and habitat. Their symbiotic relationship with trees in the rainforest is ancient, yet these birds are in great danger from human actions and listed as endangered. They are also known to eat fungi, kicked up from the ground which is excreted. The fungi they eat help all trees and plants in the rainforest due to mycorrhizas (fungal associations at the roots). In the painting, we wanted to show the Cassowary engulfed by the rainforest it so crucially creates.

Description:
Size / 34cm x 44cm
Original painting, acrylic on canvas in wooden floating frame 5.5cm deep.

Signed original painting with Certificate of Authenticity and free delivery within Australia.