The Society of Wildlife Artists

Wilderness and solitude act as a mirror. Far from any distraction the brain is not entertained anymore and eventually, focusses on the important stuff.

Adrien Brun

I started this project in order to find some answers throught my art and ended up with more questions than I started with. Wanting to raise awarness about local wilderness through expedition field artwork here in southern Norway, I quickly found that even in the most remote places, deleterious influences of human were everywhere and the animal thus not so abundant. So I came to the question : what do we call ​“wild”? The more I was digging, the more I felt I was lacking the tools and maturity as an artist to tackle the question.

So instead of only using the tool of my art to answer the questions about wilderness, I decided to also use wilderness to discover what are my tools. So as planned, I spent weeks in remote areas, from fjords shore to high plateaus, looking for subjects to sketch and paint from life. Wilderness and solitude act as a mirror. Far from any distraction the brain is not entertained anymore and eventually, focusses on the important stuff.

A Moose and its young, a displaying Black Grouse, Long-tailed Tits building their nest, a Swan on a frozen lake, singing loons in a fjord… As I was gathering images I started to identify the questions to tackle: the coherence in my images, finding the right tools, talking with other artists, questionning the honesty of my work, taking online courses, trying things, taking risks.

Finally, I am slowly getting on track to find the genuine way to link my naturalist love for wilderness with field and studio artwork. The final point of this project, and starting of this new path, will be an exhibition and a lecture this autumn, to share the beauty and importance of this wild nature with the locals.

Next step : back to the mountains !