The Poo-tastic Tasmanian Paint Off asks artists to use a unique medium to paint portraits of people they admire
Karin Koch was inspired to start the world’s first animal poo painting competition after purchasing a large and highly detailed painting created out of cow dung by the German artist Werner Härtl.
Koch then commissioned the Tasmanian artist Mel Hills to paint wombats using wombat poo and a pademelon with pademelon poo collected from her garden.
“All three paintings are now on display at the Pooseum, so holding a poo painting competition was simply the next logical step,” Koch said.
The competition, which began in 2024, is run by Koch, who in 2018 founded the Pooseum, a science museum dedicated to the intriguing world of animal droppings.
The idea of opening a museum about faeces came to Koch, who is in her sixties, after a close friend died of bowel cancer in 2016.
