Into the Blue

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

It was the exploitation of these highly intelligent animals for the food industry that inspired Jenna Green to create ‘Float’, her large drawing of an octopus. Detailed charcoal rendering on mount board and highlighted with 23k gold leaf, Jenna felt her choice of medium reiterated her message of worth and value. It is Jenna’s hope that this piece will encourage audiences to question their personal choices, and how they interact with animals.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Using a monochromatic colour palette, Jenna specialises in creating hyper realistic wildlife pieces in charcoal and graphite. She utilises gold leaf to represent the value of her subjects, aspiring to create striking messages through her art. She is currently studying a postgraduate degree in environmental and energy law, and aims to utilise both her art and education to advocate for environmental and animal rights.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

After supporting the world’s largest single stock fishery for decades, Engraulis Ringens became infamous when the fishery crashed in 1972, due to overfishing and environmental disturbances. This happening was the inspiration for Jessica Eggers’ mesmerising mono drawing. Jessica presents the Peruvian anchovy as a symbol for greedy fishing practices everywhere, whilst serving as a reminder that the oceans are not, and never were, inexhaustible.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Jessica Eggers is a South African pen and ink artist who is inspired by the sea and its amazing creatures. Through her drawing Jessica communicates insights gained from her experience as a science and fisheries management postgraduate. Bringing together these two areas of her life, Jessica has worked on a variety of projects ranging from infographics to scientific illustrations and also broader wildlife art. Her knowledge of the biology of the marine world and the precision inherent to scientific discipline are apparent in the fine detail of Jessica’s art, creating a mesmerising coalescence of what it is to observe and to image.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

‘Likwena’, a highly detailed drawing by James Hitchen, offers the viewer a late afternoon glimpse of a Nile crocodile submerging itself into dark waters during the summer rainfall season. James’ intention was to capture this species in monochromatic shades to provide sharp detail, at the same time awakening the response to a predator in the artist’s home river, the Zambezi.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

James Hitchins is a self-taught artist born in Zimbabwe and raised in Zambia. As a wildlife conservationist with Victoria Falls and the Zambezi river on his doorstep, James’ inspiration comes from the quiet moments in the African outdoors. Using either graphite or white chalk to create monchromatic images, James demonstrates his great love for wildlife.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Sunlight travelling through water is a magical experience. In his large, ocean-hued acrylic on canvas painting ‘The Light Beneath’, Clive McBain has experimented to achieved the visual effect he desired. However, camouflaged by that magical light below is the less desirable, but equally magical, venomous Lionfish.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Clive McBain began painting in 1992 having retired from a successful career in advertising. Having studied Graphic Design at Brighton College of Art, on graduating he made the natural transition into working as a creative director. Clive paints only in acrylics and alternates between painting highly realistic studies to colourful contemporary images, one of which is seen here. Clive’s work has been featured on ITV’s Meridian Television, extensively in the Sussex press and he has had six solo exhibitions at Petworth House, West Sussex.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Nick Oneill’s mixed media piece was inspired by the vast amount of sea life layered onto a reef. Nick thought it made for a spectacular underwater city – mimicked by multiple layers of resin over a ground metal canvas and with the corals depicted in metal leaf. Nick finished this vibrant piece with wave effect resin to sparkle like the sea with light movement.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Nick Oneill is an award-winning British artist and scuba diver whose mesmerising portrayals of marine life sparkle like the oceans they represent. Driven by his passion for wildlife and his personal commitment to conservation he wants people to see the beauty that exists in nature in the hope it will inspire them to protect it. A combination of experience and experimentation has led Nick to develop a unique style of painting to best portray the light and life of the underwater world. Before becoming a professional wildlife artist, Nick enjoyed a successful career in the motorsport industry as a custom painter, and he still employs these skills and even some of the materials he used at that time, alongside more traditional painting techniques. Although best known for his signature black backgrounds, over the last few years Nick has been experimenting with tinted resins, covering the canvas completely to recreate the effect of the ocean’s surface. This pioneering technique adds a stunning reflective quality to the work which he sometimes highlights with both base and precious metal leaf.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

The work of Matteo Germano is based on his personal exploration into the power of visual communication that colour has in nature. His vivid oil painting on linen canvas portrays a brighly coloured jellyfish in a dark ocean, its rich red body warning perhaps of it’s stinging danger, its blue and lilac tentacles trailing gracefully behind.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Matteo is an Italian painter who works on naturalistic themes, with particular attention to the world of animals that have very bright colours. In fact, colour is the protagonist of his work, being a very powerful means of communication. The artistic technique used by Matteo is oil painting, because it is the one that best manages to render the extraordinary chromatic tones of the animals represented in the paintings. Matteo has participated in many nature-themed exhibitions and currently resides and continues his art career in Italy. 

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Leonard Calonaci’s almost monochrome painting shows a pod of killer whales, recognisable by their white patches, on a hunting trip. Highly intelligent predators, orcas are known to work together when hunting, collaborating to create waves that can knock prey off ice and into the water. A pod of orcas can take down dolphins and even some large whales.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

The irrepressible urge to create art was born in Leonardo Calonaci two years ago. Since this awakening, Leonardo has experienced a great sense of emotion and personal achievement every time he creates a work of art. Currently working in acrylics to paint wild animals, Leonardo finds this gives him a great sense of freedom.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

The inspiration behind Ryan Evan’s rich and symbolic oil painting ‘Message in a Bottle’ is the confusing yet inevitable intimate interaction between our ocean pollution versus the instinctive behaviour of a young octopus seeking shelter. The young cephalopod is seen trying to squeeze into, or maybe out of, a discarded plastic bottle in the depths of the sea. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Ryan Evans is a pet portrait and wildlife artist based in Cheshire. Ryan began his artistic journey from scratch in the final national lockdown almost 3 years ago, focusing entirely on using pastels. This is his first foray into using a new medium – oil paint. Ryan’s aim with his work is to focus on the interaction between wildlife and the many man-made pollutants they come into contact with.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Katerina Sonntagova is inspired by the deep blue world of False Bay, South Africa and recalls how, as a freediver, meeting whales underwater was an incredible privilege. This experience inspired Katerina to create her tonal blue watercolour painting ‘Hope’. The encounters Katerina has experienced whilst freediving fills her with hope that mankind are capable of treating this beautiful world with nothing but love and kindness.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Growing up in the Jeseniky Mountains of the north-east Czech Republic, an entire country stood between Katerina Sonntagova and the nearest ocean shore. From this distance, the sea was something murky and abstract – something to be feared. In 2018, a few years after moving to South Africa, Katerina finally gave in to her desire for full ocean immersion. Her first snorkel literally took her breath away. Katerina hopes her art will inspire others to step into the thrilling unknown and transform fear into love and positive action to help protect the ocean and its inhabitants, something that all of mankind depend upon.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

David Skidmore recalls it has been many years since he had an encounter with the magical sea turtle, yet it is a memory that never leaves him. His sensitively rendered monochrome drawing was inspired by David’s thinking that, at a time when our world seems anything but calm, the thought of these gentle giants floating through the sea gives him peace. It is David’s hope that his drawing has the same effect on others.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

An award winning artist, David Skidmore works mainly in pencil but enjoys experimenting with most mediums. Painting and drawing is what inspires him, David hopes his work will in turn inspire others. He aims to produce work that is informative and at times thought provoking. David is a regular artist in residence at Nature in Art, Gloucestershire.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Olivia Fregoso’s gentle and delicate monchrome watercolour painting shows the close relationship between a whale and it’s calf. It was Olivia’s hope that her painting would convey the feeling of greatness of being a mother full of both tenderness and power.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Olivia Fregoso was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. An animal lover since she was little, her interest in taking care of them and learning from them has not stopped growing. Olivia loves to express herself through painting and illustration techniques, some of her favourites being watercolour, oil and pointillism. Skilled in graphic and editorial design, Olivia has illustrated books in the United States and Mexico. She believes that it is important to teach children respect for animals and to care for them and the environment.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Mike Pickett’s powerful, birds-eye-view chalk drawing on black paper is of an incredibly important predator of the great oceans. It is Mike’s belief that without sharks the whole oceanic ecosystem is altered and as such poses a great threat to oceanic wildlife across the whole food chain.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Mike Pickett is a self-taught artist with a passion for impact. His black and white themed art, with the occasional splash of colour, largely draws inspiration from the animal world to bring attention to the ever growing need to protect endangered species and their habitats from the threat of today’s society. Working in chalk, Mike’s attention to detail and use of light and shadow combines in a unique way to capture the essence and emotion of each animal, and portrays the vulnerability of their place in wildlife today.

ARTWORK DESCRIPTION

Tamara Pokorny recalls how getting close to a ghost crab takes patience (and indeed sometimes a wet belly). However, her patience and sogginess paid off and she loves the way the evening sun made this little ghost crab’s shadow larger than life. Tamara considers her scratchboard and ink rendering to be an analogy reminding her about how small things can loom large, for both good or ill.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

From iconic species to lesser known or even disliked ones, scratchboard artist Tamara Pokorny depicts animals in extraordinary detail, showcasing the beauty of the creatures that share the world with mankind. Tamara is inspired by the intricacies of a subject you can only see when looking closely, the way the sum of all the small things amount to, and shapes, the whole. Tamara observes that as we often don’t take time to look at detail, she invites the viewer to look a little closer and immerse themselves in a moment in time.