News
I recently took part in an exciting project entitled 'The Ghosts of Gone Birds' exhibition with over 100 other artists such as Ralph Steadman, Sir Peter Blake and Bruce Pearson.
Ghosts of Gone birds is raising a creative army for conservation through series of multimedia exhibitions that breathe artistic life into extinct bird species.
Funds raised form the sales of the art and donations from visitors to the exhibition will support Birdlife International's work preventing extinctions. I chose to paint the New Caledonia Gallinule (Porphyrio kukwiedei). My painting shows the bird picking at an unidentified carcase which maybe speaks of its ultimate sad fate.
The RSPB have selected my painting Bullfinches for their 2011 Xmas cards range.
Copies can be ordered through their catalogue or at shopping.rspb.org.uk
Exhibitions
Cambridge Contemporary Arts
I have just delivered some new paintings to Cambridge Contemporary Arts as apart of their Xmas show which runs until 28th December...
www.cambridgegallery.co.uk
The Pinkfoot Gallery
Cley-next-the Sea Norfolk NR25 7RB
www.pinkfootgallery.co.uk
The Gallery
Snape Maltings, Snape,Saxmundham, Suffolk IP17 1SR
The House of Bruar Gallery
Blair Atholl, Perthshire, PH18 5TW, Scotland
I am a member of The Society of Wildlife Artists and show paintings in their annual September exhibition at the Mall galleries in London,
www.swla.co.uk
Forthcoming Exhibitions
New exhibitions are being planned - information will be posted here when it's available.
Zimbabwe Memory White Helmetshrikes
This is a new painting completed in August 2010 which is based upon a memory of a visit to Zimbabwe some 25 years ago.
In 1985 I spent a month in Zimbabwe travelling around the country visiting game reserves and watching wildlife.
This was a few years after independence when Zimbabwe was full of optimism for the future - how things have changed.
On safari in Hwange reserve I saw a party of white helmetshrikes flitting through the dry thorn scrub calling to each other as they passed.
This image of dry heat, sunlight and shadow and the swooping black and white birds has stayed with me ever since (I think I may have even dreamed about it once or twice).
I have recently started to explore the possibilities of creating works from memory alone, to try to set down the images in my head which have become altered and abstracted with the passage of time. The memory of that day still burns strong and so it seemed a perfect subject.
The painting is large and is formed from three panels each forty inches square. Working at that scale presented quite a challenge; I had to rig up a sort of wooden scaffold in the studio to accommodate such a large piece and I found myself stepping out into the garden in order to get a proper view as the work progressed.
It feels like I have completed a 25 year journey now it is done, which is enormously satisfying and it is good to have finally nailed down an image which has been hanging around my head all this time.
