Nigel Lough / Travel & Luxury Magazine / News Ltd
by Neha Kale
Leila Jeffreys is a renowned contemporary artist working across photography, moving image and installation. She is best known for images of birds, photographed at human scale, that explore and subvert the conventions of portraiture. Jeffreys, who lives and works in Sydney with her husband and son, sees her avian subjects as living beings, part of a practice that expands viewer’s hearts by drawing attention to interdependence between species. Jeffreys’ work is a result of years-long periods of research and exploration. In the tradition of artist-activists, she conducts fieldwork, collaborates with conservationists, ornithologists and sanctuaries and champions programs to protect and restore endangered habitats.
Jeffreys has exhibited in Australia and around the world for fifteen years, everywhere from Sydney and Melbourne to Paris, Brussels and Los Angeles. In 2023, her work was curated into The Best in Show at Fotografiska in New York, as part of an exhibition dedicated to animals in contemporary photography that toured Tallinn and Stockholm. She featured alongside the world’s most respected photographers as part of Civilisation: The Way We Live Now, a landmark 2023 exhibition at London’s Saatchi Gallery.
Jeffreys is the author of three acclaimed books including Birdland, released through Hachette in Australia and New Zealand, Abrams in North America and Des Oiseaux published by France-based Atelier EXB / Éditions Xavier Barral in 2020. Her work is held in Australian and international collections including Parliament House Canberra, Artbank Sydney, the Macquarie Bank Group Collection, the Hermès Collections of Contemporary Photographs, the Western Australia Museum and the Museum of Photography in South Korea.
Jeffreys’ artworks have captured the Australian imagination, inspiring Bird Nerd, a documentary by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). In 2022, Australia Post released a set of stamps of her iconic images from her High Society series, a love letter to the budgerigar that first showed in 2019 at Sydney’s Olsen Gallery.
Her practice has evolved beyond portraiture into the realm of large-scale conceptual work alongside video and installation art created with collaborator Melvin J. Montalban. The artist couples a deep moral vision with a commitment to innovation. She uses advanced cameras to capture her subjects in exquisite detail, inviting her audience into a relationship with birds that revolves around a greater depth of perception and startling emotional intimacy.
In a culture that is increasingly disconnected, Jeffreys’ art creates spaces for contemplation and wonder while asking urgent questions about the connections between humans and the natural world.