Scent of a Falling Dark was an exhibition of paintings and linocut prints at the Moores Contemporary Art Gallery, which ran from its opening on Friday, 27 April – Sunday, 13 May 2018. The exhibition drew on historical images of the thylacine to explore themes of loss, endangerment and extinction.

Thylacines (Tasmanian tigers) formerly inhabited all of mainland Australia as well as Tasmania and are well represented in Indigenous rock art around the country. The archaeological record suggests that their mainland extinction occurred around 3000 years ago. The thylacine population in Tasmania came under threat from humans following British colonization and the bounty placed on thylacines. The last thylacine in captivity, ‘Benjamin’, died in a Hobart zoo on 7 September 1936.

Below is a selection of some of the paintings in the exhibition. Further details about the images on which these were based can be found next to these images in my Portfolio.