In 2023, the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) introduced the new category, Abstract World, into its Wildlife Artist of the Year competition, expanding the renowned contest to include "non-linear interpretation and expression."
Kenya-based artist Karen Laurence-Rowe made an entry in the category, and, after becoming last year's overall winner, is now set to present a standalone exhibition, A Journey into the Wild, at Wildlife Artist of the Year 2024.
Her winning piece, entitled The Journey, was first set down in January 2023. She recalls: "I decided to try and develop an exciting new technique and for an experiment, started work on an abstract piece of art - I wasn't painting it for anyone or for any reason but for the pure exercise"
Shortly afterwards, DSWF announced its Abstract World category, and then she came across a photograph taken by Ed Ram depicting six dead giraffes around a waterhole. The image was captured from the air during Kenya's drought, and its impact, Laurence-Rowe says, "was like a kick in the stomach." She describes that as The Journey's lightbulb moment, and over the next few days, she added symbols of giraffes to the work. "I wanted the painting to look, at first glance, to be purely an abstract; but should the viewer stand in front of it for long enough, they would discover the giraffe on their journey - some that made it, a couple that had not."
The painting took on a more personal significance for her when she suffered a series of cardiac arrests and was given a mere 5%-10% chance of survival. Her long road to recovery gave her a strong affinity to the giraffes she painted, "both those that had died and the ones that survived."
Giraffes are again among her subjects in A Journey into the Wild. The collection will feature a mixture of oils from about a year ago, and a new collection of watercolors, which will be exhibited from July 1 to 6 at the Wildlife Artist of the Year show at the Mall Galleries in London. All featured works, including the finalists of this year's competition, will be available on the DSWF website starting June 26.
