Anne Smerdon is an Australian artist documenting the symbiotic relationship between humans and animals, particularly birds and horses.  Facebeak are her pet birds Vonnegut and Schiele. Anne has an extensive knowledge of body language and psychology in birds and horses. She uses this to work with live birds to create each of her artworks. She may spend hours with each bird, patiently waiting for them to become at ease in her presence so that she can capture their true personality.

Anne’s love for birds started from a very early age when her family purchased two small parrots as pets. They were vicious and in no way tame, yet Anne quickly became fascinated with them, studying them for school projects, recording her observations and giving presentations at school on the need to understand and protect such birds. She learnt to understand the calls of wild birds and would often find injured or sick birds and bring them home to nurture them.

In 2009 Anne brought a young exotic Indian Ringneck parrot called Vonnegut into her home. This spurred on hours of reading ornithological studies, discussions with avian vets and researching. As a result, Anne’s lifestyle, artwork and even career became synonymous with birds. Since then, Anne’s presence as a bird owner on social media has grown to over 400,000 combined followers on Instagram, Tik Tok and Facebook. She has written two books The Facebeak Guide to Living with Parrots and The Facebeak Guide to Solving Parrot Problems.

Anne uses her work to advocate for birds. Each body of work has a strong social aspect, raising awareness and educating the public on protecting wild birds and/or providing for the mental, physical and emotional needs of birds in captivity. Anne regularly collaborates with bird-life organisations and donates proceeds from her work to support their charities.

Anne lives on the Gold Coast, Australia. She works in watercolour and oil paint and has exhibited both nationally and internationally, receiving various awards for her work, including:

• 2023 finalist in the Brisbane Portrait Prize

• 2022 finalist in the Wollumbin Art Awards

• 2022 winner of The Doyles Still Life Award

• 2021 winner of The Doyles Still Life Award

• 2013 Trinity College Emerging Artist Award

• 2013 Winner of the Element Eden Global Artist Search (Fine Art Category)

• 6x finalist in the Border Art Prize

Watch videos about Anne:

Anne also runs the The Artory art school in Kingscliff, NSW.

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