Ronelle Reid is an artist who draws her inspiration from her love for animals, and uses ink, oils, and watercolours to create detailed visual narratives exploring the relationships between animals and their habitats. Her style is a combination of colourful naturalist work with quirky compositions, which pair species that do not coexist or share habitats.
Through her art, Ronelle invites viewers to question why the rules of land, air and sea no longer apply, and why fish happily swim through the antlers of a bongo antelope and butterflies flutter around a moray eel. She has spent countless hours studying animals in museums, using the taxidermic displays to understand and convey their forms. However, her experience with animal welfare during her work with RSPCA gave her a new perspective, which she now incorporates into her work.
Ronelle combines her formal education in painting, screen, and printmaking to plan each composition, purposefully breaking the rules of taxonomic categorisation. Her work draws attention to the interconnectedness between species and invites viewers to see how they are being forced to adapt in rapidly changing ecosystems, or risk extinction. These pairings also invite people to engage with the character and personality of individual animals, challenging them to see them as more than just objects to be studied and classified.
Being aware that Australia has one of the highest rates of extinction globally, and that much of its rich biodiversity is found exclusively on this continent, Ronelle's next series will inspire people to learn more about vulnerable native animals and encourage them to do more to protect them. Her quirky, naturalist portrayals preserve and highlight the beauty and diversity of animals in Australia, inviting us to imagine the loss of kookaburras, koalas, and wallabies forever.
