Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl

Next in my Canberra Birds artwork series: Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl. A barn owl flies past the Belconnen Penis Owl sculpture at dusk, as the commuter traffic crawls into the Canberra evening.

Image detail: Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl

The location: the Belconnen Owl statue

The statue in my scene is Owl, an 8 metre tall sculpture by Melbourne-based sculptor Bruce Armstrong.

The Belconnen Owl followed in the footsteps of other large bird sculptures created by Bruce Armstrong.


Above is “Sentinel” (2001), a 5 metre tall sculpture of a sea eagle. Originally located in the town centre near Frankston railway station, Sentinel was relocated in 2017 to a new location the Oliver’s Hill Lookout in Frankston, overlooking Port Phillip Bay.

Bigger still is “Eagle” (2002), standing at 23 metres tall in the Docklands precinct of Melbourne (above).

Also known as: the “Belconnen Penis Owl”

Though officially titled “Owl“, the sculpture is overwhelmingly known by locals as the “Belconnen Penis Owl“.

Costing $400,000, the painted fibreglass sculpture was unveiled in May 2011, as the final local engagement by outgoing ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope.

Upon unveiling, the owl became a magnet for public comment and ridicule. The critics being of the familiar “public art is a waste of money” refrain, common to any public art installation. With the extra angle of “it’s a giant dick” thrown in for good measure. Note that this was two years before the unveiling of the even more controversial Skywhale, which also received significant ACT public funding.

Bruce Armstrong denied any deliberate intentions behind the statue’s “phallic” shape, stating “I suppose it’s fair to say anything longer than it is wide could be a phallic symbol”.

Do we really believe Armstrong that he did not consider any other interpretations of his work? …

Methinks it is a little hard to believe that the resemblance did not occur to him. But whatever.

For what it’s worth, Armstrong noted that his motivation for the sculpture came from the collective noun for a group of owls is a parliament. Wanting to continue his bird series, he thought that that it would be fitting to create an owl sculpture in Canberra given its role as the home of Australian Parliament House.

Despite this, Armstrong seemed to accept his statue’s nickname and reputation with good humour.

The sculpture’s deepening acceptance by Canberrans

Despite the initial public reaction to the sculpture, the Owl has been largely embraced as a quirky landmark of Canberra, and is particularly associated with the northern suburban district of Belconnen.

Owl has come to be an image or meme that serves as a shorthand for the Belconnen district of Canberra. For example these images about Belconnen initiatives:

The owl also serves as a stand-in for the citizans of Canberra in memes. For example, these ACT Government social media posts about new flight routes from Canberra Airport:

…or the time that the Owl featured in an ACT Health campaign for National Condom Day 2022:

In 2022, Australia Post designed a postmark featuring the Owl, as an exclusive stamp applied to items mailed from the Westfield Belconnen post office.

Local politican Tara Cheyne has become a particular proponent of the Belco Owl as a representative of her electorate.

Sadly, Bruce Armstrong died in April 2024, after a lifetime of introducing various “strange creatures” into the world. A selection of images featuring his work can be found on his Instagram account.

The bird: Barn owl

Bruce Armstrong’s sculpture depicts a powerful owl (Ninox strenua), the largest species of owl on the Australian continent. (It is a species so large that it preys on possums!) After some thought, I felt that the intense appearance of the powerful owl may not be a natural fit with my art style. Instead, I decided to draw the friendlier-faced barn owl in my scene.

Image: Eastern Barn Owl, Australia by Bowerbirdaus
Barn owls are a global genus of birds, found on every continent except Antarctica. The particular species that occurs in Australia is the Eastern barn owl (Tyto javanica).

Image: Australian barn owl in flight by fir0002

With a heart-shaped facial pattern, barn owls are quite common across Australia, though they are uncommonly sighted because of its nocturnal habits. They feed mostly on small mammals such as mice.

The surroundings: Belconnen Way and Benjamin Way

Naturally, the scene is set at the location of the Belconnen Penis Owl, which is on the intersection of Belconnen Way and Benjamin Way in Belconnen. Belconnen Way is a major commuting route, so I made the glare of car headlights and taillights a feature of the scene. Also present is the “alien dude” graffiti that I added to my gang-gang cockatoo scene. (And which has seemingly dropped off the Canberra tagging scene in the last three years – I have noticed no further additions of this tag appearing around town since then.)

At the time that I drew this scene, there was actually a construction site occurring behind the Belconnen Owl. See these photos that I took:

They are preparing to build a new apartment building complex called “The Markets Residences”, which is imagined in a series of too-good-to-be true 3D renders on the developer’s Facebook page. The 3D graphics show uncommonly large numbers of well-dressed people gathering in the apartment complex’s exceptionally lush gardens and and recreation facilities. We will see how reality matches these virtual mock-ups once the apartment complex is built…

Anyway, I have future-proofed my illustration by drawing The Markets Residences into the background of my Belconnen Owl scene.

Postcards, greeting cards, art prints

Support my work by buying this artwork as a postcard, greeting card or signed and numbered art print from my online store.
Visit the Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl product range category, or use the following links for these items on my web store:

• Greeting card – Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl (11.7 x 18.2 cm size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of greeting cards
• Postcard – Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl (A6 size) – also available in four-pack and eight-pack bundles of postcards
• Art print – Barn owl at the Belconnen Owl (various sizes, pigment ink prints on archival paper)