Oil on canvas, stretched and ready to hang.

Signed on the back.

I’ve set this scene in Jarowaitj, a magnificent temperate rainforest behind Apollo Bay on Victoria’s south-west coast. There have been recent sightings of spotted-tailed quolls there, and I wanted to paint one in this gorgeous place hunting along a creek.

It’s ultimately a commonplace occurrence - the quoll catching the scent of a potential meal - but one that is rarely witnessed by people.

My research for this work included days of sketching in some remote gullies of the Otways, and lots of studying quolls to accurately depict this enigmatic species.

It’s the second of my Endangered Project paintings, a series of 36 Australian threatened wildlife paintings, depicting each animal in their natural environment.