Wayne Goodwin - Fleeting Moment, Eastern Barred Bandicoot

Wayne Goodwin
Fleeting Moment, Eastern Barred Bandicoot

Photograph

41 x 41cm

Artist’s Statement

The photograph was captured on a rainy day in February 2023, early in the evening. I was standing at my kitchen sink preparing a meal and caught sight of some movement on the grassed area. I watched silently, thinking the animal was a Brown Bandicoot. Slowly, it moved across the area stopping to plunge its snout into the dampened soil.

The image has some blurring. It was taken through window glass and the animal was moving. I only had time to adjust the camera settings to fully automatic. Perhaps the blurring could be taken as a metaphor for our interactions with the natural world. We become so focused on our busy lives that nature can be a “blur” in the background. Until we focus on what there is in the natural world our understanding can be distorted, blurred. When we look up and out from our lives, we catch
glimpses of nature and then they are gone, perhaps forever.

“The Eastern Barred Bandicoot (Perameles gunnii gunnii) is a subspecies of P. gunnii which is found only in Tasmania. The Eastern Barred Bandicoot originally occurred in native grasslands and grassy woodlands in Tasmania’s Midlands. However, it is now rare in the Midlands where most of its habitat has been cleared."
​Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tasmania.

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This work was submitted by the artist as part of Wild Island's biennial Threatened Species Project. Proceeds from the sale of this work have been donated by the artist and Wild Island to organisations directly working in species support.