Artist’s Practice

I am a wildlife artist specialising in acrylic paintings and pencil drawings. My style is photorealism, realism and illustration.

Much of my work derives from my own photography. Other reference images used are with permission from photographers. Years ago, I never left the house without lugging a Canon camera about, just on the off chance of sighting a bird or the texture of a dilapidated fence. Now life is easier with the camera on my mobile phone. My camera roll is filled with random shots of tree limbs and lichen, leaves on sandstone, birds hopping through undergrowth. But they all have their place as inspiration. I might just want to add a variegated fairy wren to that photo of a spray of wattle flowers, or a flame robin to that weathered stump.

I rarely consciously sit down to create an artwork. The image is formed, usually through a process of osmosis. I take a walk, see a twisted bough, further along the flittering of a thornbill, then light infused through the new shoots of eucalypt and later they come together. Or I find a photo of a leopard that I connect with. I cannot create without feeling an emotional attachment. I need to feel the subject, to resonate with it. That way it becomes a part of me. I infuse something of myself into the artwork, in a very personal process.

Mediums and Current Work

My favourite mediums are Golden and Derivan Matisse Flow acrylic paints on stretched linen and cotton canvas, and Faber Castell Polychromos pencils on Canson Mi-Tientes Touch paper.

I have three collections I am working on; Wings on Black, a collection of series of A4 - A3 drawings of birds on black backgrounds; Wings on Linen A4 acrylic paintings of birds on stretched raw linen; and a collection of conservation series of A2 - A0 acrylic paintings of threatened and endangered species on black backgrounds.

Many of the endangered species I draw and paint are of neutral tones. This is why I also draw and paint the brilliant feathers of birds, to bring colour to my art practice and to my range of work.

I have a love for chiaroscuro and rim lighting, imbuing my subjects with strong contrasts, especially against black backgrounds. This centres the viewers focus upon the animal, with minimal background distractions. In the case of the endangered species collection, this is a statement, the black signifying the black of oblivion, of extinction.

Influences

I grew up with one foot in suburbia and the other in the rural landscape. Weekdays in the neat containment of Longueville, Sydney. Every second weekend at an Upper Hunter vineyard, where welcome swallows nested on the back veranda, echidna drilled for ants under plumcot trees and platypus scouted for yabbies in the creek.

There is a connection that arises from being immersed in nature. This is the reason I illustrate wildlife. It is a gift that I feel I have a duty to share. I must depict the natural world, for others to see what we are so at risk of losing. To see and to care. For it is only through connecting with emotion that people act.

I work now in a studio in Hornsby, Sydney. Still in suburbia, but a block away from National Parkland. Each morning the eastern rosellas strip seedheads from the grass of my lawn and the kookaburra feast on sunbathing lizards on the concrete pavers. I wield pencils and brushes listening for the resonant call of the yellow-tailed black cockatoos winging overhead. While beyond the window, the Asquith bus lumbers past the flame tree with its three-tongued leaves glowing apple-green in the sun.

Aspirations

My ultimate goal is to create a body of work that touches people. As a wildlife artist I strive to capture the essence of each creature I paint or draw. The natural world is fascinating and precious. It is both enduring and fragile. In some small way I wish to touch the heart of those that view my work. If I interest only one person in protecting what surrounds us, then my art is worthwhile.

Marie-Claire Colyer