So it goes like this ... I need some chips! I need to beg for help! I'm drowning in art-making expense and you've been outsourced to benefact! The iZ is raising funds for an extended version of iNFLUiZZY and needs your help to make it happen. Every dollar donated goes straight to the project, with no middle(hu)man and no delay!

Get in early so we can start booting the ball towards the goal. Back iZ today and help to get there, as part of the official Creative Australia #AusArtDay

SEE the AusArtDay page here:

Contribute to the creation of an extended body of work for iNFLUiZZY by iZZY iBiS to be exhibited in 2027. Help iZZY with expenses covering materials, studio hire, research and exhibition production for additional works in the iNFLUiZZY body of work for exhibition.

A preliminary solo exhibition of work by iZZY, titled iNFLUiZZY, was exhibited in September 2026 at Darwin's Tactile Arts Gallery NT. This saw the culmination of a body of work created during 2026 and particularly through a 3-month studio residency at Tactile Arts from June-September 2026.

In 2027, iNFLUiZZY has been selected as part of the Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts & Culture Centre's exhibition program in the Regional Gallery's main exhibition space - the Lambert Gallery. This space is a larger space and will see iZZY's work exhibited on a grander level in the artist's first solo exhibition in a larger regional public gallery.

As such the artist has begun working on extending the body of work to include a number of new works that had not been created for the previous iteration of iNFLUiZZY - that's where you come into it!

Contribute $50+ and receive 1 x ceramic iBiS head from the installation CONGREGATiON (101 iBiS HEADS), 2026, iZZY iBiS (Brendan Penzer)

glazed terracotta.

Contribute $100+ and receive 2 x ceramic iBiS head from the installation CONGREGATiON (101 iBiS HEADS), 2026, iZZY iBiS (Brendan Penzer)

glazed terracotta + 1 x iBiS BiAS tote bag.

Contribute $150 and receive 3 x ceramic iBiS head from the installation CONGREGATiON (101 iBiS HEADS), 2026, iZZY iBiS (Brendan Penzer)

glazed terracotta + 1 x iBiS BiAS tote bag & 1 x iBiS Bias merch pack.

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Brendan Penzer (the artist behind iZZY iBiS) is a social-ecological artist working across multiple mediums. Brendan (and iZZY's) artworks subversively encourage change through action and engagement at the enveloping convergence of ecology, culture and psychology, in an interrogation of the age of the Anthropocene.

Brendan / iZZY has exhibited in and curated exhibitions across Australia, including NSW, WA, VIC, SA, QLD and the NT. iZZY calls Katherine in the NT's Top-End home, where the traditional lands of the Jawoyn, Dagoman and Wardaman converge.

Brendan Penzer holds 1st Class Honours degrees in Bachelor of Applied Science – Social Ecology (Ecological Psychology & Cultural Change) and Bachelor of Fine Arts, Western Sydney University, NSW.

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ARTiST’S STATEMENT:

Izzy‘s inception grew into existence during a series of action and performance artworks I made as a counterpoint to a couple of things that were happening in my community at the time - in 2011. One was a group of people trying to lobby local government to pay for and implement a cull of Australian White Ibis on (of all places!) the Cooks River - a modern high-density suburban locality - and the second was against an anti-Islamic racist public artwork that was getting a heap of media coverage at the time.

So that was somewhat of a starting point. However, I’ve been fascinated by ibises since I first laid eyes on the strange looking creatures as a child, but this more recent attention led to an artist colleague giving me the moniker of Izzy Ibis – essentially a play on words, which is right up my alley!

Influizzy is an exploration of a number of aspects that have gone into the phenomenon of Izzy Ibis’s oeuvre over the last 15 years - and that inquiry works on literal, allegorical, metaphorical and analogous levels. There are cyclical relationships and synergies between the works in the show and various previous works and projects that I have exhibited over the ensuing years.

In a nutshell, iNFLUiZZY (like my artistic practice) is a study of relationships and influences, whilst delving into the social, cultural and ecological themes and subject matter that I am concerned with exploring and discussing as a contemporary artist. Sometimes I exhibit under the name Izzy and other times my original name, it depends on the project.

My artistic career, and my personal endeavours, have been strongly influenced and dedicated to environmental and social justice, reconciliation and cultural change. I come to art as a platform for exploring these and other issues – art for change’s sake, not art’s sake – that’s what I see as the role and value of the contemporary artist.

So, when I make a series, or body of work, the subject matter will usually lead itself to the mediums or tools that I use to make or show the work and rarely vice versa. Place and time matter, as does context. It makes for a practice that is constantly learning, up-skilling and evolving – but it also honours diversity and sees me creating at the edges.

Academically (and fundamentally) I come from a Social Ecology background, and in particular ecological psychology and cultural change. Art is a vehicle that I use to articulate these themes which are inextricably linked – you can’t have one without the others.

In INFLUiZZY, on a literal level, I look at issues such as speciesism and anthropocentrism, whilst on an analogous level I look at race relations and reconciliation. I also want to emphasise that (under)value of the artist in a contemporary world and how they contribute to better ways of understanding and being - but first and foremost, I do this (I hope) by starting from a point where everything is pinned to a time and place by interrogating ways in which we live, think and connect in an environment that entwines us all with everything else.

I hope that viewers come away with a greater understanding, curiosity or appreciation of survival, adaptation, celebrating difference and are curious more about collaboration and being part of something more than just themselves. About finding the courage to make change or make a difference. I’d like people to extrapolate their own assumptions about their world and place and challenge these for fluidity in the face of growth and change.

At the very least I hope you enjoy it!

The Australia White Ibis is somewhat ubiquitous these days, but less people know about the Straw-necked Ibis (the mostly black one) and far fewer the Glossy Ibis (brown) – we are blessed with birdlife up here and three species of native and endemic Ibis!

I have works that reference important historical and contemporary points in these works, from the land-rights movement to the more recent referendum, and these are intrinsically linked to my time and place here in the Top-End.

I value humour highly. I think it helps to provide entry points and connections into the themes and work with a degree of fun and subtlety. It provides a safe place to start a dialogue. Irony and paradox play a huge part in this body of work and that is consistent in my work at large. My art and the use of humour is not about ridicule or derision - it’s deeply serious. I don’t use the derogatory terms brandished regarding my subject matter, to the contrary, I question the ecological, environmental and cultural paucity of the colonisers that has led to this phenomenon. I hope that my dedication to reconciliation, ecological, cultural and environmental well-being comes through, utilising humour as a crutch to elicit thought and reflection.