There are parrots in Paris now. How strange and yet, how thrilling. As we wander the streets of Le Marais in search of vintage textiles, Olivier tells me about the lime-green Ring Necked Parakeets that escaped captivity, took flight, and flourished in the City of Light.

Now, tens of thousands streak through the horse chestnut trees and magnolias, their tropical plumage flashing against the grey autumn sky. This is not what an Australian expects to find in October in Paris.

It has been many years since I have seen my dear friend, who, decades ago, saved me from an unfortunate fate involving a runaway floor polisher and a plate-glass window.

Back then, he was a handsome, dark-eyed French pastry chef on a working holiday at a small hotel and restaurant in Church Point, in Sydney. I was a university student earning cash as a cleaner. Olivier spoke no English, but was fleet of foot in ripping the power cord out of the wall as the defective old metal monster floor polisher spun me towards the window.

In those days, surrounded by Pittwater’s glittering expanse and dense Australian bush, Olivier was the exotic bird – delighted to have absconded from the grey streets of Paris and the weight of its history that he found oppressive. A stranger in paradise.

Forty years on, shepherding me around his city, his parrot story presents me with the inspiration I was seeking for a new body of work.

I had crossed the world to immerse myself in palaces and museums, to study gilded furniture, marble floors, and centuries-old artistry. But it was a conversation about these foreign birds thriving in an unlikely home that truly sparked my imagination. Art is perverse like that.

The story became a new way of explaining my preoccupation with pairing birds with beautiful designs, craftsmanship, patterns and history. This collection can also be viewed through the lens of adaptation and displacement – how life finds its way into unfamiliar landscapes. Beauty is not bound by place; sometimes, it takes flight, settles elsewhere, and becomes something new.

Fiona Smith 2025