28/05/2026
ANNOUNCING: Fiona Smith, ‘Back from the Brink’ | Top Floor Gallery - Opening 4 June
For the very first time, Sydney/Eora based Fiona Smith is presenting a major new body of work at Michael Reid Southern Highlands - following an extraordinary run of exhibitions and appearances in our Murrurundi Gallery.
Smith’s paintings place birdlife within densely ornamented domestic interiors, where pattern and colour converge with remarkable compositional control. Drawn from the artist’s immediate surroundings, her feathered subjects are rendered with a palpable sense of presence — alert, self-possessed, and entirely at ease among textiles, flowers, and decorative objects.
For this new series, Smith turns her attention to species of birds that have been brought back from the brink of extinction by the heroic work of conservationists. “Since 2000, 25 bird species have stepped back from the Critically Endangered list,” she says. “Of course, this is a drop in the ocean compared to the ongoing loss of species worldwide — but what these stories deliver is proof of something vital: that humans have the ability to repair some of the damage we have caused. That we are better off saving this planet — the only one we have.”
A message of optimism, amidst turbulence, resonates powerfully throughout the collection, where Smith honours her subjects - and the communities who saved them - by way of exacting attention to detail, and a lovingly patient brush.
To register your interest in this new collection, and receive a priority catalogue, press through to the link in bio.
