The acclaimed young wildlife artist Gary Stinton was born and brought up in Hereford.
He took a keen interest in nature as soon as he could walk, collecting insects in jars before he was old enough even to leave his garden. From a very young age he also had a natural artistic ability, which first emerged whilst playing with plasticine as a toddler. Initially he modelled animals but, as he grew, pen, paper and pencil took over and he concentrated increasingly on art rather than sculpture.
He works now almost exclusively in pastel, believing that pastel is "the purest medium" and, when painted on museum board and framed correctly, will always outlast oil or watercolour. "Pastel has a greater longevity than oil", Gary Stinton believes. "With pastels, you are working with a pure pigment with very little binder, and you want to get the stroke right first time. There is layering, but it is very subtle. The cave paintings which survive today are 20,000 years old. They have survived, and they are pastel."
Always inspired by nature, he describes his artwork as "attempting to live". "It’s all about nature", Stinton says. "I’ve always been drawn to the natural world. Everything goes back to that. Everything else is detail". He aims to encapsulate emotion in his paintings but not sentiment. "When I complete a painting, I ask myself: Does it live?"
Gary Stinton is married, with two young children. He remains a country-lover at heart but this young artist’s work has already been exhibited at several prestigious one-man shows in London.
