arctic desert ocean jungle

Olly & Suzi: Arctic Desert Ocean Jungle
Publisher; Harry. N. Abrams. NYC
Territory: All rights available
300 illustrations in full color, 272 pages, 10 3/16" x 12"
ISBN 0-8109-4266-6
EAN 978081094266-
April 2003
Additional photographs by Greg Williams
Introduction by Clive James
Essays by Dr. Steve Baker

In pursuit of their animal subjects, artists Olly & Suzi situate themselves in the subject's natural habitat-the wild-approaching as close as possible and working in tandem, they quickly capture it on paper using the day's particular combination of paints, brushes, burnt sticks, natural pigments, even blood on occasion, and then offer up the finished portrait to be paw-printed, tooth-markedbitten, or otherwise marked by the animal for authentication. Their collaborators have included anacondas, crocodiles, polar bears, and great white sharks. Of course, occasionally a leopard decides to rip apart its own image, or a rhino devours the canvas whole. While yielding paintings of extraordinary beauty and power, Olly & Suzi consider their art performance-based and site-specific: sometimes the only thing they come away with from an expedition is their lives.
Spare, vibrant, and lyrical, the works that have survived Olly & Suzi's 15 years of adventures in such remote locales as Siberia, the North Pole, and Galapagos fill the pages of this equally boundary-defying book. Accompanied by dazzling photos that document the pair's unique process, these paintings take the reader on a dynamic journey to the world's remaining, though endangered, wild places.
Since meeting as students in 1987, British artists Olly and & Suzi have made works together in the wilds of Alaska, the Arctic, the African bush, the Kalahari Desert, the Australian Outback, the Amazon, Borneo, Mongolia, and elsewhere. Olly and Suzi each live with their families in London.
The book is now available at www.amazon.com and all good bookstores.