Darren is in pole position

May 1 2009 by Donald Morton, Stirling Observer Friday

THORNHILL artist Darren Rees has been shortlisted for the second year running in the Wildlife Artist of the Year competition.

Darren’s “In God we Trust” and “Bears, Tracks” will be on display and for sale at the Mall Galleries in London from June 2-6 as part of the competition run by the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

Journalist and broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson will announce the prize winners at a special private preview on Monday, June 1, with a prize of £10,000 for the winner.

Darren has won a number of awards including BirdWatch Artist of the Year, Natural World Fine Art Award, RSPB Fine Art Award, and the Countryman Art Award. His first solo book “Bird Impressions” was a runner-up in the Natural History Book of the Year Award.

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

His latest work is from the Arctic territory of Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago lying beyond the Arctic Circle, nearer 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,” said Darren.

“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.

“That summer the ice retreated ninety miles further north than ever before.

“Polar bears, stranded on land could no longer get out on the ice to hunt seals.

“Climate change is happening right now and these animals are going to be amongst the first casualties.”