Bring Nature Into Your Home for World Wildlife Day

From painters to sculptors, beadwork to photography – whether it’s frogs or flamingos, fish or felines – artists have always been inspired by capturing wildlife in their work. These themes, mediums or subject matters not only bring an element of the outside into your interior, but can provide all the benefits we associate with spending time in nature. They can be restorative, relaxing, and improve your mood. So, for World Wildlife Day 2024, we wanted to explore how you can bring wildlife art into your home to celebrate their theme for this year: Connecting People and Planet.

WWD is for encouraging people to celebrate the natural world and inspiring continued action for animals and plants throughout the year, and for years to come.

Conservation through abstraction

Internationally renowned wildlife art competition Wildlife Artist of the Year was won in 2023 by artist Karen Laurence-Rowe, with her hard-hitting abstract tribute painting to the giraffe suffering the terrible drought in North Kenya. Karen has lived in Africa all her life and has watched her subjects dwindle exponentially as the human population grows.

“It is a race against time to save the endangered species of the world but the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation is a good place to start!”

Exhibiting a similarly understated yet impactful simplicity to that of Laurence-Rowe’s winning artwork, we love Adam Taylor’s oil paintings, inspired by the flora and fauna of West Wales: here, two abstract paintings that reflect the estuary of a river and form of a rabbit.

Head underwater

If you are after something that captures the movement of ocean life, Keng Wai Lee’s ‘Citius’ offers a rich vibrancy of colour and depth. This painting would brighten up any room, adding a captivating focal point to the space. 

Keng Wai Lee, ‘Citius’, acrylic on canvas, 80 x 80cm, London Contemporary Art Gallery

Mad about monochrome

To a more monochromatic approach, we’re feeling inspired by these black and white beauties!

Kate Boxer is a master of capturing an animal’s essence in her artful drypoint prints. The texture and materiality of the printing technique only intensifies the character, wit, and intimacy to each animal she renders. 

Birds of a feather

Help your art collection take flight with this series of avian artworks.

Influenced heavily by wildlife, Emma Reynolds captures the likeness of the animals she encounters within various landscapes. Seascape or cityscape, you can often see the soft and delicate markings of her screenprints depicting birds flying across the sky.

Guará, from the Tupi-Guarani “awa’rá” means “red”. Eudocimus ruber is a bird typical of the Atlantic coast of South America that lives in mangrove regions. Its reddish colour is the result of a carbohydrate-based diet rich in carotenoids. It is photographed here by Eduardo Dias, who has a real talent for capturing vivid colour in his fine art prints.

Nadia Attura also depicts wildlife through photography, often manipulating her prints to add a saturated, surrealist touch. Her ‘Backwaters Spring’ celebrates the beauty of a junglescape, which seems to invoke all the senses – you can almost hear all the bird calls of the lush jungle.

Feeling inspired? Find out how to get involved with World Wildlife Day in 2024, or take a look at our guide to investing in conscious art. Plus, make sure to scout out some wildlife art of your own at your next fair. Get the dates in your calendar!

Main image: Rosie Lovelock, ‘I Care Not’, linocut print, 38 x 29cm, Will’s Art Warehouse