A huge congratulations to Lori Pensini for being selected as a finalist in the Salon DeRefuses for this year with her beautiful and melancholy painting titled 'Free Bird', 55 x 50 cm.

Artist statement:
This work highlights our role in planetary health. Unenviably, Australia has the highest rates of extinction and loss of biodiversity in the world. The small yellow breasted robin perched upon my head represents habitat loss, he is alert, unsettled, unpaired, displaced. Paradoxically the cause of his destruction is also his salvation. There is an urgent need for significant change from each and every one of us if we are to repair the degradation brought about by our environmental mismanagement.