Banjo was my first large Gang-gang cockatoo painting, and I wanted him to be impossible to ignore.

That extraordinary scarlet head against the darkness, the wild sweep of his crest, the intricate grey barring of his feathers. But it was his eye that brought him to life. There's a curiosity there, a little attitude, and the unmistakable character that makes Gang-gangs so special.

I already loved these birds, but painting Banjo at this scale made me look even closer. Gang-gangs mate for life, have that wonderfully strange creaky-door call, and after the devastation of the 2019-20 NSW bushfires, they're now endangered.

Banjo went on to win the People's Choice Award at the Thirroul Art Festival 2026. That meant a lot to me. People didn't just walk past him. They stopped. They looked. They saw him.

And really, that's the whole point.

Acrylic and oil on canvas · 76 × 76cm (30 × 30") · Original

Painted from a reference photograph by David C Simon / Shutterstock.