After spending the past 25 years travelling the world and painting many exotic animals, one of the leading wildlife painters in the British Isles says he has his eyes on many more expeditions in the future.

Dr Jeremy Paul opened his latest exhibition, entitled ’Wildlife-An Artist’s View’, at the Isle Contemporary gallery, Tynwald Mills, last weekend.

It features more than 30 different paintings, each one displaying Jeremy’s ability to brilliantly capture and create highly realistic renditions of animals in their native environments and natural splendour.

The paintings have been created over a 12-month period, and are created from thousands of photographs taken from Jeremy’s travels across the world.

Lions and leopards are pictured illuminated by rich sunlight whilst striding across the Savanna plains, and tigers and arctic foxes are depicted in painstaking detail.

Bird life is also meticulously represented, with close ups of goldfinches and sparrows contrasting with gannets and herring gulls pictured against almost-epic seascapes.

Not that Jeremy travelled far afield to create all his images though. Many, including one of his stand out pictures of a peregrine falcon perched on a cliff edge, were painted from scenes a bit closer to home,

’There seems to be a lot of local, Isle of Man-based work in this exhibition, along side a lot of exotic creatures,’ said Jeremy at the packed launch of the show.

’I have done a lot of island-based paintings this time around, which was quite an unconscious thing, actually.

’I didn’t set out to do that specifically. I just have found lots to paint over here.’

Jeremy has visited many countries in the course of his research for the paintings contained in this exhibition.

His latest trip took him to Madagascar, where he spent several weeks photographing the native lemurs.

’They are just fabulous animals,’ he said.

’They just seem so nice, as animals go.

’I had a wonderful trip, and this is the first opportunity I have had to share any of the paintings from that trip.’

Jeremy creates his pictures from photographs taken on his trips, and will refer to several images to create the ideal elements for his painting.

’I take hundreds and hundreds of photographs and then use bits of various pictures to create the work. It is quite rare that I use just one photograph for one painting.

’I’m not actually very good at field sketching,’ he admitted.

’I don’t tend to sketch, because I can’t leave them alone. I would always be returning to it and putting too much work into it.

’But I create images of things that I see. I find a lot of my paintings by not going out specifically to look for things. I just go out.

’I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside, and I just see things that, whether it is the wildlife or just the setting, I think are just fantastic.

’That forms the basis of my thought process.

’The peregrines up on Marine Drive are birds that I have spent a lot of time watching, along with many others. But while I was there I realised how wonderful the blue rusty, faded and weather-beaten railings were.

’While I was there once a goldfinch landed on one, and I immediately thought I should paint that scene.

’All the other photographers were up there pointing their cameras at the peregrines, and there was me taking pictures of the railings.

’But that is how my mind works sometimes. You just see something that you think is fantastic. I ended up painting sparrows on them, which I have included in the exhibition.

Jeremy has already set his sights on his next photographic expedition.

’I am planning a trip to New Zealand, which is somewhere I haven’t been before.

’I really want to see some of the wildlife there, especially the kakapo, a large ground-dwelling, bright green parrot.

’Of course they have the kiwi birds, and there are penguins there too. I just love penguins. They are fantastic things.

’Also, a photographer I know is currently in the Pantanal region of Brazil, photographing jaguars. That is something I really would like to do too.

But I would go anywhere where there is wildlife. I’d go back to Africa in a heartbeat.’

There is one particular animal Jeremy has yet to paint, however.

’I may paint some of the wallabies here one day. I have photographs of them, but I have never painted any yet.

’I almost took part in the recent wallaby art trail. I had the idea that I was going to paint one just as a wallaby, with none of the brights colours.

’But when I saw the size of them, I thought it would take me months to paint one of them, so I knocked that on the head.’

’Wildlife-An Artist’s View’ is on display until Sunday, November 3.

by Mike Wade

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