Our new body of work is made behind (and below) the scenes, deep in the bowels of the Natural History Museum In London ; collaborating with the wonderful biologists and their collections. 

In 1998 we spent a summer living in a tent tracking arctic wolves and musk ox at 82 degrees on Canadas remote Ellesmere Island. The musk ox captivated us- a living remnant of the Pleistocene and the prey base of arctic wolves…

Inspired by George Adamsons lion after our re recent  trip to Kampi ya simba and ‘ luga  boy’ in kora national park in Kenya’s remote NFD.

In 1998 Suzi and I embarked on our most remote expedition to date,  to spend a summer tracking a pack of Arctic wolves at Lake Hazen at 82 degrees North on Canada’s remote Ellesmere Island. We were dropped on a tundra moonscape by twinotter with all our tentage, food and survival kit for six weeks. […]

Inspired by our six week expedition to interact with Arctic wolves on Canadas remote Ellesmere in 1998. 

‘ This  little female swum towards us from a vine and reached out- connecting with my infant son-  the last orangutan.’

This piece is inspired by our first polar bear expedition to Fox Island off the coast of Hudson Bay in 1996. Here we tracked a large boar across the tundra, its wedge shaped mass buffeted by the bitter east wind until it disappeared in the blizzard.

This study was made on our first collaborative safari to kenya and tanzania in 1995. We have learned a first sighting of a wild creature is often the most impactful.

This small study was made on our first collaborative safari to East Africa in 1995.

We first learned of a legend of the black tiger in Dudwah, from the Indian  tiger conservationist Billy Arjun Singh. A poached pelt had been recovered during a raid of a poachers forest lair and billy and his tracker recounted their profound sadness at this find. We made our first  black tiger painting in homage […]

We made this painting free diving with manta rays in the maldives. We were struck by the gracefulness  of these gentle giants and the texture of their rough black skin formed as all sharks of tiny teeth. After each interaction we would rub the our work in the ground coral rock sand to emulate the […]

We began this painting, face to face with a large male cheetah in the Namibian bush  in 2008. The work remained  in our collection, unfinished, for many years and in June 2023 we finally finished the work.

Our meditation on the first bull elephant we ever met in 1995;                                 Understanding                                  By Olly Williams     One morning, we came upon fresh elephant spoor in the gritty sand. It emanated. Adjacent in the ochre soil, sign betrayed primordial tracks I struggled to encircle with my arms. Finely etched, hot we […]

We made our first marks on this piece deep in the jungle of Bardia in far western Nepal  in 2009. On this expedition,  we had just a single slipping glimpse of bengal tiger and we had put the painting to one side, unfinished to concentrate on a series of painting about elephant. That brief interaction […]

We made this painting sitting next to a magnificent golden eagle. It is painted on an old soviet era map, high in the Altai of western Mongolia- during our expedition to live with the Kazakh eagle hunter and his family.

We encountered  this old gentleman, sitting patiently  in a great current watching the reef go by.  

One of the most extraordinary living organisms we have encountered above or below the waves was a  neon pink anemone- glowing in bright day light , home to clown fish, flowing in the reef currents of misool , west Papua.

We made this graphite study , living with the eagle hunter and his family in their gher in the high Altai , far western Mongolia on the Kazakh border. Each day we flew the eagle in the mountains and each day we shared the tent with this stunning bird of prey. It was afforded the […]

This painting was first started on the freezing shores on Hudson Bay in Sub Arctic Canada  in fall of 1996- our first ever polar bear tracking trip. Originally  conceived  as a landscape work,  we were amazed by the natural formation of ice crystals on the rough hew of our water colour paper.  25 years later […]

We began this painting in 2007, tracking a large polar bear boar on Snow-machine across the frozen ice pack of Mohn Fjord on coastal Svalbard. Sometimes the planets align, our collaborative marks on paper articulating the spontaneous movement of our quarry. Sometimes they do not…. This unfinished painting sat in our studio plans chest for […]

This is our last Mkomazi Wilddog. Made on our last ever trip in december 2019. Two months later lucy and tony fitzjohn- our dearest friends and their family left their beloved home deep in the national park for ever. Fitz and lucy had , with a loyal skeletal tanzanian team in 30 hard years help […]

“This wolf emanated a wild crackling of vitality…. Taut through hoary shoulder wolf muscles rippled, moist nose glinted, ears pointed long- all hearing, as wide set-almond eyes watched us- burning with sentience.”

“This was the big bad wolf of folklore, the wolf I had conjured in my mind as a kid listening to ‘Peter and the Wolf , A wolf that could swallow granny whole!” Olly Williams

“Ēostre is the goddess of the dawn, spring, fertility, and rebirth. As the story goes, Ēostre had once saved a bird from the winter cold. The bird’s wings had frozen and could not fly away. So she changed the bird into a rabbit, and since the rabbit was once a bird, it could lay eggs.”

The first in our new series of painting and drawing inspired by the creatures of folk lore in Aesops fables.

“One night as we walked back to our cabin, a longing wail wafted to us through the trees. We froze. Then grinning to each other in nervous excitement, crept towards that sound. I reciprocated with my own howl and just moments later the wolf replied. The wolf was close. We scanned the forest with our […]

Exploring landscape is vital to us. Whilst a portion of our work focuses on tracking a specific creature, that creature and the process of tracking is inextricably linked to the habitat in which the animals live. A moose is majestic Because its home is too. A moose removed would be out of context and a […]

We made this study tracking highland stags on Tournaig – then part of the vast Letterewe estate/ ecosystem. Here all our work painting the red deer , caledonian pine, mountain landscape, skulls, willows and lichen was hard earned on foot- longs days in the field with no vehicle access here a contiguous 90, 000 acre […]

The spirit of this male lion has stayed with us ever since we shared space in the Namibian bush over twenty years ago. We have drawn him regularly over the years – and every time we revisit lion in the bush in both line and tone we learn and see something new. The pursuit of […]

“We squatted on the gritty ochre of the boma as the African wild dogs approached – an arrowhead of intrigue; scruffy paratroopers and ready for anything”

Made on our first expedition to track and paint the polar bears of Hudson Bay in 1996. We spent a few weeks out on the tundra , often near a gang of Eskimo dogs drawing and interacting with the transient population of polar bear. One large boar rested in his day bed , in the […]

We have been making studies of this adolescent lion for many years. We first met Mattata in Namibia at the Africat foundation in 1997. He had been orphaned  and taken into their care.  Our first interaction was shared whilst painting his portrait as he rested patiently just feet in front of us. Mattata was a […]

We made this small painting on our map whilst staying in a Kazakh eagle hunters get in the high altitude region of western Mongolia. We lived for two weeks in this traditional felt and canvas home, along with our kind Kazakh nomadic hosts, a cow and a magnificent golden eagle. Ours was a diverse and […]

We made this interactive painting with a family of brown bears that were to be translocated to a wild park on the forested outskirts of Zurich many years ago.  The bears, all of whom had been born in captivity, were being translocated from an austere concrete enclosure into a a new pine forested sanctuary that […]

We made this interactive painting with a family of brown bears that were to be translocated to a wild park on the forested outskirts of Zurich many years ago.  The bears, all of whom had been born in captivity, were being translocated from an austere concrete enclosure into a a new pine forested sanctuary that […]

The polar bear ambled, stiff legged, and craned up at us. He was so close we could smell his meaty, steaming breath. His moist nose seemed to possess a life all of its own: twitching and sensing our every move…

We drew this encounter from the cage as a large adolescent white shark powered towards the surface. We were struck by its aerodynamic form, the perfection of its line of attack.

The white shark emerged, a perfect torpedo, floating effortlessly towards us in the blue. We began to draw, our soluble pencils tracking a soft, submerged line – the physicality of the shark bombarding our joint perspective, coercing emotion – an awareness of shared space.  The realisation of our encounter came out through our hands across […]

‘The last tuna?’ Made underwater in galapagos. Despite the message of our field work I’ve been part of the problem. Eaten more than my fair share of tuna over the years….No more. Each and every single one of us needs to get a grip and stop eating fish. Please check out the work of these […]

We made this drawing at around 11pm at a remote outpost on svalbard in the endless summer months. During this time the sun remains high in the sky at these latitudes and allowed us to make a series of landscape studies outside, late into the night.

We first began work on this painting on the windswept shores of Hudson Bay in 1996. We spent our days in close proximity to a large boar as it rested and rolled on the tundra adjacent to a staked out team of Eskimo dogs. Due to the proximity of our subjects Sometimes we are able […]

“The black masked wilddog approached, sensing,  step by tentative step. We knelt and waited on the gritty ochre of the Boma and only then,  began to make our marks on the paper. Around us the air filled with guttural barks and high pitched whines , our nostrils filled with the meaty musky aroma of these […]

We made this work in the backcountry of Yellowstone  on a bluff overlooking a herd of buffalo, their rumination resonating across the river basin. Thanks to the protection of the first national park- This tableau has been preserved since the Pleistocene. Thunder, a bull that can trace its DNA back to the last contiguous herd […]

The buffalo stood broadside, it’s great shouldered hump and horned boss appearing as one, giving the buffalo the appearance of a living breathing battering ram. More than anything we were struck by the iconic form of this ancient beast, a creature that had once defined and populated a vast swath of North American wilderness and […]

Eight brains. Sentience comparable to evolved mammalian intelligence and reasoning. The ability to colour and shape shift restricted only by the diameter of an all seeing eye ball. Our most distant relative. Last time we shared DNA with octopus was 650 million years ago. The focus of NASA alien life division…. An evolved and beautiful […]

I have always been fascinated by the ability of octopus to defensively deploy camouflage: either by using clouds of ink to elude detection or their extraordinary ability to match their surrounding habitat. The first time I experienced this was in a submerged cave in Greece. As I put my hand into the crevasse I was […]

Then from its den, scrapped deep in the centre of the Boma, the African wilddog approached. It slipped towards us, lithe, wary and perfect in just about every way…

This large painting is inspired by our interactions with both safari ants in East Africa and the ‘24’ hour ant in the Amazon. One of the most truly awe inspiring and collaborative forces in the insect kingdom. This work was made in our studio in Chinese ink – unlike the very real pressures of working […]

Orange palm was made covertly: during a snowy day in the humidity of the vast tropical Victorian green house at Kew Gardens  – transitioning from a bitter zero degrees in london to 40 degrees inside the greenhouse it was as if we had stepped into another world: transported to the lush jungle canopy of past […]

Forest matters. For us it is more than a back drop. Forest represents home, shelter, refuge and life for many of the creatures we have tracked and painted over the years. Trees not only absorb carbon and help keep our air clean, they improve our wellbeing, our sense of calm, our connection to nature. We […]

We made this A2 study in the breeding Bomas in Mkomazi. For twenty years we have worked with this African wilddog breeding programme pioneered by Tony and Lucy fitzjohn. African wilddogs are an indicator species at the top of the food chain. Where there are healthy numbers of wilddog, so the nature is in balance. […]

Watching these industrious little beetles go about their extraordinary work, relentlessly rolling dung into balls we are reminded of the extraordinary diverse collaborative elements of nature. Each creature, each strand of life whether creature, plant life, fungi and bacteria plays a vital role maintaining a balance in the wild. This balance is vital for all […]

We made this painting in the wilderness of Mkomazi National Park in northern Tanzania with a venerable baby bull elephant who came to be known as Mr Tembo. Lost to his herd,  Tembo happened upon a surprised askari in his hut at the bottom of the air strip in the middle of the night. It […]

We made this painting hiking deep in the old pine and red wood forest in the surrey hills. In a clearing we came across a great lighting struck trunk. We felt the thick spongy bark, and looked skywards and we struck by the lattice of branches and limbs, from Stuby boughs to thing twigs and […]