What was the first painting that wowed you?
Can you remember the very first painting that ‘wowed’ you? I can! It was in Kenya, when I was 6 years old.
It was also my first memory of seeing an elephant. It was from a picture. Not just any picture from a nursery rhyme, or a cartoon of a jolly Dumbo. It was from a painting above the mantelpiece at a friend’s home. I remember walking into their living room and being transfixed at the image of this enormous animal thundering out of the wall towards me. Ears flaying, trunk trumpeting, clouds of dust. I was shocked, awed, and actually slightly alarmed!
Many years later, in 2019, when I was asked to be their partner artist, I started selling and donating my work through the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation, I came across his elephant paintings and a shiver ran through me as I recalled the memory of that that huge elephant image. I then suddenly realised that the artist of that fabulous painting was the iconic David Shepherd.
What goes round comes round.
David Shepherd was 29, when in 1960, the RAF flew him to Kenya as their guest : "When I arrived they said to me, : "We don't want paintings of aircraft, we fly them all day long. Do you do local things like elephants?" And that's how it all started. I hadn't even painted a rabbit before then."
He died in 2017 at the age of 86.
And so I strive to evoke that emotion to my wildlife art. Well, maybe not so much the alarm, but certainly the awe. I try and express the individual character of the animal in vibrant colour - using African sunset colours of tangerine and watermelon; purple and lilac of the jacaranda tree; that blue blue of an impossibly blue sky. Anyone who has seen these animals in real life, especially in the wild, cannot fail to feel a real kinship with them and understand the need to protect, nurture and cherish them, as I do.
People love that I capture their memories into something that they can see every day on the wall in their living room, that they can see right now. Why? Because it is an immediate reminder of their wonderful past. REMINDERS ARE GOOD.
“Oh, this so reminds me of my honeymoon in South Africa”
“Weren’t we so lucky to see these wild dogs on safari, it’s so rare to see them in the wild nowadays”
“Oh, look at the curious expression on that elephant, it looks just like the one near our camp”
Our life on this planet is transient. We don’t exist to make memories. We exist to have joy with our loved ones - make memories to share - make memories to remember. Remembering those memories is what I strive to do with my art.
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