Voyages in the Arctic - Wildlife artist Darren Rees

Darren has kindly offered to donate 50% of the proceeds of any of his paintings that sell via our website to Friends of the Earth Scotland.

View the paintings for sale.

About the artist

Darren Rees was born in Hampshire in 1961, and he studied Mathematics at Southampton University teaching the subject for a short time before pursuing painting full time. As an artist he is self-taught.

His work has attracted many awards including:

    * BirdWatch Artist of the Year
    * Natural World Fine Art Award
    * RSPB Fine Art Award
    * Countryman Art Award at the Mall Galleries, London.

His first solo book Bird Impressions was greeted by much critical acclaim and was a runner up in the Natural History Book of the Year Award.

Darren is a council member of the Society of Wildlife Artists in London and he has been a contributing artist to The Artists for Nature Foundation/WWF projects in Holland, Poland, Peru and Ecuador. He has held painting workshops for a diverse number of groups, including Stirling University and Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

He is a knowledgeable naturalist and travels extensively, leading wildlife holidays to Europe and the Americas. He is also a regular writer with Birds Illustrated and Bird Art & Photography magazines.

Darren’s most recent work is from the high Arctic and has attracted much attention. His large canvasses have been runner-up for the prestigious GMAC Art Award and category winner in the inaugural Wildlife Artist of the Year Awards. He comments:

‘In recent years I have visited the Arctic territory of Svalbard, journeys that have frankly changed things for me. This breathtaking Norwegian archipelago lies far beyond the Arctic Circle, at times closer to the North Pole than it is to mainland Scandinavia.

'It’s a land shaped by the forces of nature, where vast ice caps feed mighty glaciers that force their way through jagged peaks and crash into fjords filling the water with chunks of ice the size of houses. Working in the field amongst this true wilderness is a humbling pursuit yet the experience went beyond the parameters of my usual sketching and painting.

'In the summer of 2006 the ice retreated ninety miles further north than ever before. That’s a lot of ice to just disappear. Polar Bears, stranded on land could no longer get out on the ice to hunt seals.

The effects of climate change on Arctic ecosystems is difficult to quantify, but it’s happening right here, right now and these magnificent animals may be amongst the first casualties.’