The manifesto ‘Nature is not a background’ of farmer-artist James Darling underscores every page of this book. Curator and former director of the Art Gallery of South Australia Daniel Thomas traces Darling’s artistic career from tentative beginnings to his place as the creator of some of Australia’s most arresting sculptural works.

James Darling is best-known for his continuing series Malleefowl Nests; large-scale installations of the extraordinary nests made by the bird that inhabits the south-eastern Australian region where his property lies. Darling is also a photographer, writer and artist of many hues, as well as a community activist, farmland conservationist, salt-land agriculturalist and highly successful cattle farmer.