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 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 the 2013 Element Eden Global Artist Search (fine art category), 2013 Trinity College Emerging Artist Award and more recently, the 2021 d’Arcy Doyle Still Life award. She has also been a 6x finalist in the Border Art Prize.
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 cheeky indian ringneck called Vonnegut into her home. Her quest to ensure he lived the most happy, fulfilled life led to countless hours of reading ornithological studies and research. As a result, Anne’s lifestyle, artwork and even career became synonymous with birds. The “crazy bird lady” was born…and Anne wears that title with pride!
Since then, Anne’s presence as a bird owner on social media has grown to hundreds of thousands of followers.