This work is an original painting on paper, framed in stained timber.

Edan Azzopardi (still) likes birds, though in his most ambitious exhibition to date the artist expands his repertoire beyond the avian world, delving through childhood memories, Australian nostalgia and the bush roll-call to celebrate an array of marsupials, monotremes and other iconic native wildlife that remind us just how unique and special they are.

While birds remain at the heart of his work, I Still Like Birds brings us back to ground level, highlighting some of the country’s most beloved and distinctive species on land–taking us from the waterways of the shy platypus, into the burrows of the spiked echidna, along the tracks of the feisty Tasmanian Devil, and up into the tall branches of the beloved Koala.

Capturing the charming attributes of each animal and bird in his own modernist leaning style, Azzopardi’s playful paintings seek to provide a connection between us and our native wildlife, instilling in us a deep sentimentality for our own backyard and its wonderful inhabitants.