Sally Edmonds

Sally Edmonds is an English artist who has made Perth in Western Australia her home. After a successful career in design and reprographics in the UK print industry, Sally decided to fulfill a lifelong ambition to become a full time professional artist in 2014. Along with a rekindled love for art came a real passion for birds. Growing up on a very typical working class estate in the south of England amongst a less typical mix at home of magpies, canaries, chickens and finches, for Sally they were just a normal part of life. It wasn’t until much later that she discovered a fascination and started to really see birds for what they are. A central part of Sally’s work is to show the real character of the bird as an individual which, if you spend any time around birds, especially parrots, becomes very clear. “When I am forming an image, I have 3 main objectives; Colour. Composition. Character. If I can get all 3, I’m very happy!” 

Once again, Sally lives very happily in house surrounded by birds, rescued and adopted. Sally also has a strong link with and supports the Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Conservation Centre in the Perth Hills near to her home. 

Sally works in pastel, watercolour, colour pencil and acrylics with the subject or size dictating the medium. Her work veers towards realism but certainly isn’t photorealistic. Use of exaggerated colour, large size, mark making and usually a white background means that Sally’s work is slightly different to the more typical way of depicting birds, usually in their habitat. The focus is 100% on the bird and the bird is a unique being with it’s own story, history, family and future. Sally has won several awards in Australia and is looking forward to challenging herself with more and more complex work.