Ben Waddams is a British wildlife artist living and working in Shropshire. Originally from Buckinghamshire, South East England, Ben has lived in the States for many years on several different occasions and travelled in search of exotic wildlife across Central America and Africa.
"I have been lucky enough to have lived and travelled through some truly mesmerising areas of the world and this is where I take my inspiration from.
Some people may make the point that filming, painting, and writing about animals, is not active conservation. Correct, it's not, until the awareness and money made can be injected into projects.
BUT there has to be that awareness in the first place. There needs to be that appreciation of wildlife, gained through the descriptions of the place or the portrait of the animal, for people to then dip into their pay-packets and change their lifestyles with the aim to conserve the species on this planet.... which I think we all have a moral duty to do.This is why I paint, write and photograph...
The wildlife should always and does always come first.
I try to paint 'moments in nature'. Scenes where, for the most part, the viewer plays no active role. My paintings aim to be windows into the natural world. They are concerned primarily with animal behaviour and potential energy - that moment caught in time before life resumes.
My aim is that they invoke a stirring in the minds of their audience and in turn my hope is that the audience themselves will be inspired to seek out and help protect the species in my paintings and of this planet.
Personally, I get great pleasure from looking at and studying the natural world, whether with a pair of binoculars, a pen or a paintbrush and, if I can helpfully communicate that pleasure to others through my paintings, then that is a tremendous reinforcement of that satisfaction for me. "
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