Description

Created through macro photography, digital collage and animation, The Gaze of the Forest explores the relationship between wildlife, landscape and perception. The work depicts owls constructed from ecological matter found within their own habitat, including caterpillars, bark, seed pods and fungi, photographed at a micro scale and digitally recomposed into living composite organisms. Through subtle movements of attention, blinking and observation, the owls become an extension of the environment they inhabit: both observers and part of the ecological system they are observing. The work considers landscape not as a backdrop, but as an active field of connection where perception circulates between all living things.

The soundscape incorporates a field recording of a Masked Owl made during an Art 4 Takayna paddling trip along Tasmania's Arthur River. Recorded at night in the remote landscape, the elusive owl is heard but unseen, extending the work's exploration of ecological presence beyond what is immediately visible.