Ornithurae

• Prize
• Photographer
  Leila Jeffreys, Australia

Australian photographic artist Leila Jeffreys has taken it on herself
to profile the diversity of wild pigeons found in Australasia. They
are pigeons as we are not used to seeing them, as if our
conventional friends, to surprise us, have decked themselves up in
party gear.
Everything alive is essentially a mystery, and pigeons, with their
extraordinary mental and physical powers, are more mysterious
than most
Pigeons were domesticated thousands of years ago, long before
chickens or ducks, which makes them the bird on earth to which
we have the longest close relationship.

• Awards
  Leila Jeffreys launched her sixth solo exhibition Ornithurae at Olsen Gruin Gallery, New York in 2017. This followed a succession of major exhibitions featuring large format portraits of birds that includes Budgerigars, Cockatoos and Birds of Prey. Jeffreys has been an exhibiting artist with Olsen Gallery, Sydney since 2012. Her works are found in private collections nationally and internationally. She has published a major illustrated art book entitled Bird Love (launched at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra) and has exhibited in London, Hong Kong, New York and Sydney.