“Just like a portrait artist, any bird or animal painted in the realism genera deserves to be accurately portrayed. As an artist, know your subject and try your best to represent it as beautifully as nature does”.                           BJ

Born in Portland, Victoria Brett Jarrett (44) is one of Australia’s finest bird and mammal painters having dedicated much of his life to the study of these subjects. His interest in wildlife started aged eight where winter beachcombing often revealed rare subantarctic seabirds along remote windswept western Victorian beaches.

Since 1987 he has been involved in a wide array of scientific wildlife projects in Victoria but 1996 opened the door to Antarctica through the Australian Antarctic Division’s Whale, Dolphin and Weddell Seal abundance and tagging surveys. Later expeditions followed through the Mawson’s Hut’s Foundation and as a wildlife guide and artist throughout the Antarctic Peninsula; East Antarctica; New Zealand’s subantarctic islands and the Ross Sea.

The Northern Hemisphere proved equally alluring with scientific expeditions over four years covered the entire eastern tropical Pacific from Midway Atoll to Peru’s Humboldt Current studying the behaviour and abundance of whales, dolphins, seabirds, flying fish and marine turtles.
In addition, stints living in northern Europe and a host of other wildlife field projects around Australasia, it is not surprising that he is the most travelled and experienced of Australia’s modern day wildlife painters.

He has co-authored and illustrated several books dedicated to field identification and anatomical accuracy:

Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds, volumes 2 and 3. Feather and Brush: Three Centuries of Australian Bird Art. A Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife. Whales, Dolphins and Seals: A Field Guide to the Marine Mammals of the World. Marine Mammals of the World: A Comprehensive Guide To Their Identification.

Through his book contributions and as an award-winning artist with the Wildlife Art Society of Australasia and the Waterhouse Art Prize, Brett’s work is synonymous with marine wildlife however he is equally recognised as one of Australia’s best equine portrait artists and commissioned by clients wanting to capture their horse’s unique personality and anatomical features.

Close to his heart are animal exploitation and cruelty issues and has been a life-long contributor to animal welfare organizations and conservation groups.
His scientific illustrations are in use by the Sea Watch Foundation (U.K.) and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society of Australasia as educational tool highlighting awareness and the decline of many species of marine mammal. In 2005, under the patronage of H.R.H. Prince Charles and supported by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, two of his illustration paintings from the award-winning book ‘A Complete Guide to Antarctic Wildlife’ were donated to the Save the Albatross campaign and auctioned at Trinity House, London.