One of the joys of visiting Africa is the art. The wildlife art. The scenes. The cultural art. The crafts.

One of my favourite artists on the web of African Wildlife art is Shirley Greene.

I remember one of her paintings "After the rain". When looking at the painting you can hear the rain drops still falling off the forest leaves.

I have "borrowed" her biography and linked to some of her paintings.

Please enjoy.

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Shirley Greene

Shirley Greene was born and raised in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and spent her youth traveling with her parents through the country’s many game parks including Lake Kariba, Hwange National Park and the Eastern Highlands.

A self-taught artist, Shirley began sketching and painting the parks’ wildlife and landscapes at an early age. In the beginning of her career, she focused on Africa’s vast bird life as the subject of her painting and received considerable success. Today artists and critics alike still consider Shirley to be the premier bird painter of Africa.

Despite a flourishing career, Shirley took a hiatus from painting to raise her two children and only returned to painting full-time when they became teenagers. At this point, inspired by acclaimed wildlife painters Bob Kuhn and Ken Carlson, she made the decision to start painting both wildlife and bird life. Each year Shirley spends one to two months trekking the vast open plains of southwest Africa and battling the thick bush of Botswana and Zimbabwe in search of new ideas and reference material for her paintings. The changing dynamics of Africa’s environment never escapes this perfectionist.

Until recently she resided on a plantation overlooking South Africa’s famous Kruger National Park where a “walk in the park” was just minutes from her studio. This has enabled her to capture the essence of African wildlife and express it on canvas.

Working primarily in acrylics, Shirley works in a loose, almost impressionistic style and has been applauded by art critics and museum curators alike.

Combined with her vast colour palette and sophisticated use of light, Shirley has risen to the top of her genre in a relatively short period of time, leaving many of her contemporaries in awe of her success.

To quote Bob Koenke, editor of Wildlife Art magazine, “Shirley’s art is as soft as a leopard on sand; subjects as bold as a lion’s roar; and a palette as memorable as an African sunset.” As one stands in front of her works, one can see the incredible looseness of her brushstroke, yet the further one stands back from them, the more the paintings become like back-lit photographs. Shirley’s sell out exhibitions over the last three years are an indication of where this rising star of wildlife art is headed. Her works can be found in the permanent collections of the prestigious Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, Wausau, WI; the International Wildlife Museum, Tucson, AZ; and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OH.

Shirley Greene - Wildlife Artist