Sacred king­fish­ers are found across Aus­tralia and are most­ly soli­tary except dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son. They perch on low branch­es, scan­ning the ground for crus­taceans, rep­tiles, insects and their larvae.

On my rur­al prop­er­ty in the Top End I often see a range of dif­fer­ent species of King­fish­ers from the Blue Winged Kook­abur­ra, the very vibrant Azure King­fish­er to the cute Lit­tle and For­est King­fish­ers. The lizard pop­u­la­tion are always on high alert as these birds are excep­tion­al hunters, swoop­ing down from their perch with light­ning speed and agility.

The bird and log are paint­ed with pig­ment­ed encaus­tic medi­um in mul­ti­ple lay­ers. Each lay­er is heat­ed with a butane torch flame, melt­ing the wax medi­um to the lay­er below. The fir tree resin is added to the bees wax to increase the melt­ing point of the medi­um. Over a peri­od of 18 months the medi­um slow­ly matures and hard­ens, cre­at­ing a sur­face that can be pol­ished to a high gloss, is imper­vi­ous to mois­ture and can with­stand tem­per­a­tures up the 80 degrees Cel­sius with­out melt­ing. This medi­um was used by the ancient Egyp­tians to paint por­traits of the pharaohs. These paint­ings are still being found on the sar­copha­gi and are in per­fect con­di­tion and have main­tained their vibran­cy over thou­sands of years.

About the Artist:

Adri­enne Wade is an artist based in the rur­al area of Dar­win NT.

She grew up in Alice Springs on a prop­er­ty just out­side of Alice Springs. Her child­hood was spent explor­ing the foothills of the Mac­Don­nell Ranges and rid­ing hors­es in the dry riv­er bed of the Todd.

Dur­ing the Wet Sea­son in the Top End Adri­enne works in her stu­dio cre­at­ing art­works inspired by her nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment. She paints pre­dom­i­nant­ly in encaus­tics, an ancient medi­um of bees wax, damar resin and pow­dered pig­ment with a mod­ern day twist.

In the Dry Sea­son Adri­enne can be found paint­ing on the con­crete walk­ways and play­grounds in schools. With her teach­ing back­ground and art skills, she designs and paints activ­i­ties to help stu­dents self-reg­u­late their behaviour.

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