Richard Ward

Richard Ward is a painter who skilfully embraces very different environments. Four years ago, the artist found himself far from his windswept home in Connemara, in the depths of Southern Oman being transported by military helicopter into the mountain wadis of the towering Jezebel Samhan range. There, in this dry, rocky and inhospitable place inaccessible by any road, he became one of a handful of people to encounter the rare Arabian leopard in one of its last strongholds in the wild. Out of this heady experience came a series of spectacular paintings one that featured the Sultan himself with the leopard in the background. This alter became a stamp commemorating Oman's year of the Environment 2002.

The distinguished wildlife artist who has exhibited in galleries in Ireland, Spain and the UK came to live in Ireland in the 1960s. Born in Yorkshire, Richard grew up with a love of wildlife. Back in Ireland, the Wards along with their customary menagerie went to live in Spiddal in Co. Galway. It was a time when interest in wildlife was growing. Around this time, he also designed sets of commemorative stamps for the Irish Post Office including one featuring the pine marten commissioned specially for the World Wildlife Fund. Interest in his work spread to the UK.

Now "pushing sixty", his portfolio of work is an impressive one. His scale has swung from tiny postage stamp studies to five-foot canvases, his subject from kingfishers and game birds to landscape sand life size portraits. He never leaves home without his paints working in a variety of media, watercolours, oils and acrylics.

"At this stage you are guarding your reputation, all that spadework is beginning to mature and bear fruit, so now it is about real quality and your worth as an artist. Ireland is a good place to work. I don't think I would have survived this long if I had stayed in the UK. In the end the nature of the beast is solitude, and it is you and a paintbrush".