Abstract World

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Henry McAlpine’s graphic painting explores the collision between the natural world and the built environment. With its strong and brooding tonal palette, Henry’s painting brings together animals and humans, portraying them to be part of the same complex puzzle.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Henry McAlpine (b.1998) is a painter originally from Northumberland. Having been surrounded by the landscape during his upbringing, he has always been fascinated by the richness of the natural world in relation to his family heritage; rooted in construction. These varied environments merging together have inspired his practice over the last few years; aiming to balance the architectural motifs that influence his style with animalistic subjects. Henry studied Fine Art at the University of Leeds and learnt traditional drawing and painting techniques shortly after. Since then, he has found inspiration through his travels to Africa and South-East Asia.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Marie Antoniou’s vibrant and colourful painting of a Black Rhino is depicted through expressive, energised brushstrokes. Marie chose this energetic portrayal to highlight a contrast with the rhino’s firm and still stance.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Marie Antoniou is an artist and art tutor. Her love of animals and nature led her to study Scientific Illustration. After graduating she became a self-employed artist teaching art privately alongside developing her own art practice. Marie has exhibited extensively since 2004 in a variety of venues, including Geedon Galleries, Essex and the Mall Galleries, London. Her paintings are an impressionistic interpretation conveying traditional subjects in a more contemporary style. For Marie this is explored through expressive brushstrokes and bold colour, giving a slight abstract feel to the work. Her work has also been published in books and magazines and used as set dressing in TV and film. To date Marie has been a finalist at the prestigious David Shepherd Wildlife Artist of the year exhibition every year between 2014-2021 and now in 2023.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

This ‘macrosculputure’ is an enlarged view of the feather of a Ramphastos sulfuratus (keel-billed toucan). As the viewer’s perspective shifts, the barbules conceal or reveal different colours and shapes throughout the work. On the reverse is a depiction of Field Museum specimen tag No. 325719, citing the Toucan’s 1966 origin on Pipeline Road along the Panama Canal.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Deception is the very nature of nature. On daily walks during the COVID-19 pandemic, Spencer paused to examine nature’s intricate details. Photographing a feather with a macro lens, he witnessed colours, shapes and textures not readily discernible to the human eye. This perspective inspires Spencer’s wooden ‘macrosculptures’. The self-taught artist’s sculptural process is intimate and primitive, using a box cutter to carve individual grooves. He scours museum specimen collections, selecting and photographing birds whose paper tags reveal the hidden history of people, places, or species. Spencer hides an illustration of these tags on the reverse of each corresponding macrosculpture.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Shoji Terada feels that a herd of wild elephants can both inspire and heal us. In this painting he has used simple lines to express the beauty of the elephants in an abstract way. At the same time Shoji has expressed the impermanent beauty of the elephants through the use of grainy colours, implying the importance of continuous wildlife conservation efforts.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Shoji Terada is a painter, animal lover, and conservationist. Since being fascinated by wildlife during his honeymoon in South Africa in 2014, Shoji has launched STM STUDIO with his wife Momoko, and has passionately created artworks that combines the beauty and adorableness of wildlife with the importance of conservation. Today, he provides his art and designs to about 50 organisations and activists in about 20 countries to raise awareness and help them raise funds. 

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Nathalie Daigle observes that skin is a sense organ, and as such is both a separator and a connector between self and others. In her abstract painting ‘Openness’, Nathalie depicts the elephant skin stretched out in a limitless sky, feeling this stands as an ‘openness’ to awaken our senses to life on earth and its interconnectedness.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Biology studies and scenic art emerged as Nathalie Daigle’s first interests, these two fields stemming from her deep love of nature and art. Creating has evolved into an expression of Nathalie’s inner connection to nature, in which she expresses life as being our common core. With close-ups of elephant skins that tell stories about how tightly connected our life cycles are, she demonstrates her exceptional sensitivity. As a wildlife lover and environmental artist, Nathalie’s artwork clearly asserts that the need for connection with the wild is part of human nature. She feels that to encounter the wild has an impact on mankind, that impact being humility.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Hashim Akib’s rich and vibrant acrylic painting ‘Woodland Sunset’ is based on his photo of local woodlands as sunset approached. Hashim loved the light against the dark and the lines zig-zagging around the scene and was inspired to create this piece by depicting the warm and dark contrasting colours.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Working as an illustrator for over 15 years, Hashim’s client list varied from newspapers, magazines and design agencies. Hashim became more interested in developing his own paintings and started exhibiting, demonstrating and running workshops. He is now a represented artist and has won numerous awards and is the author of ‘Vibrant Acrylics’, ‘Painting Urban and Cityscapes’, Dorling Kindersley Artist’s Painting Techniques’ with a new acrylic book coming in 2024.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Being sensitive to their environment, Justin observes that birds are a good indicator of the health of a particular ecosystem. In his paintings, Justin combines aggressive, abstract brushstrokes and textures with realistically rendered birds to create spaces that give the impression of erosion, change and isolation, whilst at the same time informing the viewer about their environmental fragility. Here Justin depicts a red breasted nuthatch peeking out in search of the pines.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Justin Kellner’s love of the outdoors led him to birding. He is fascinated by the process of spotting and identifying birds and by the complex ways they relate to their ecosystems. His abstraction draws on memories from his birding excursions as well as from the landscape of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where he grew up. Justin lives in Grand Rapids where he paints full time. He hopes sharing his experiences in nature will encourage others to explore.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Ze Ze Lai’s delicate and striking portrait of an anteater was created as a monochrome watercolour, capturing a unique and organic look that flows seamlessly across the paper. Ze Ze’s artistic flair gives this painting a sense of dimension and motion whilst also portraying the solitary nature of the anteater.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Ze Ze Lai is an acclaimed watercolour artist from Hong Kong. She draws inspiration from nature, and her expertise is in painting animals and birds. Ze Ze adopts an impressive range of styles in her art practice. From painting soft and dream-like scenes of small birds in the forests, to her use of bold dynamic strokes and granulating textures, she takes her viewers on a journey of imagining the peculiar lives and small moments of the little animals in nature. Ze Ze has received numerous awards for her paintings, her works have been widely exhibited around the world.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

In her painting, Melanie harnesses the patterns, colours, shapes and textures of a living soundscape to describe the interconnectedness between inhabitants of this small Welsh island and the sea. She depicts the voices, the movement, the rhythm and the energy of seabird colonies, together with the wind and waves, to create an ecosystem of soundmarks. It is Melanie’s belief that this is a fragile balance that needs protecting.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Melanie Mascarenhas is a UK based artist and naturalist whose practice is informed by a love of direct, considered, observational fieldwork and an intimate connection with wildlife in its environment. Her unique, firsthand wildlife encounters are brought to life through expressive painting, drawing and printmaking. Melanie’s work shares the interconnection between organisms and their fragile ecosystems through the interplay of colour, movement and sound drawing, creating a visual representation of the rhythm and energy of the places and experiences that inspire her.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Shoji Terada’s mission is wildlife conservation through art. He feels that while there is much tragic and sad news in wildlife conservation, he paints to highlight the challenges faced by wildlife but in as positive and fun way as is possible. This lively and colourful piece demonstrates this belief. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Shoji Terada is a painter, animal lover, and conservationist. Since being fascinated by wildlife during his honeymoon in South Africa in 2014, Shoji has launched STM STUDIO with his wife Momoko, and has passionately created artworks that combines the beauty and adorableness of wildlife with the importance of conservation. Today, he provides his art and designs to about 50 organizations and activists in about 20 countries to raise awareness and help them raise funds. 

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

‘The Journey’ by Karen Laurence-Rowe, is a tribute to the dead and dying giraffe suffering the terrible drought in North Kenya. Whilst Karen’s painting, with its striking verdigris palette, looks to be abstract, on closer inspection there are various references to giraffe. Through this painting Karen sadly observes climate change is causing terrible suffering – and that wildlife will be the first to die.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

A past winner of Wildlife Artist of the Year, Karen Laurence-Rowe has, for many years, used her art to raise funds for conservation, raising over £100,000 for conservation projects close to her heart throughout her career. Karen is a self-taught artist, mainly working in oil and watercolour to develop her unique style which has become much sought after by her art collectors. Karen has lived in Africa all her life and has watched her subjects dwindle exponentially as the human population grows. “It is a race against time to save the endangered species of the world but the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation is a good place to start!”