James Hough has successfully combined both a passion for wildlife and photography, with another of his lifelong interests, Fine Art, to produce very intricate and realistic wildlife paintings.
Bird life is of particular interest to James, but his artworks extend to paintings of other Australian mammals as well as international wildlife. His artworks reflect the large amount of resource and reference he continually collects to make each painting as realistic and authentic as it can be.
Born in the sea side city of Newcastle, New South Wales, James grew up admiring native birds on the family property at Wingham on the banks of the Manning River. He now lives near Maitland in New South Wales. He along with his wife and two sons regularly visit the family property that has given him so much inspiration. James has never undertaken any formal art studies or training and takes pride in the fact that he is completely self-taught.
Each of his paintings is thoroughly researched, aided by all his own resource material from sketches to photography. The final composition may be components of many sketches and photographic images collected on walks and visits to many of Australia’s National Parks and bush reserves. James travels extensively in his four-wheel drive into fairly remote and off the track locations. He photographs all the wildlife, landscape and props for each of his paintings. He returns to his studio with collections of objects found in the bush, branches, lichens, leaves, blossom, and native fruits. “Everywhere I go I carry a camera, a tripod, and a notebook to capture some of those most unique moments in nature. I might spend a day or a week away from the studio collecting subject matter for the next series of paintings. Finding a passion in your life as I have done with wildlife art and pursuing it creates a great deal of confidence in one’s ability and a great sense of fulfillment. I have a great desire to contribute to the long-term preservation of our unique Australian native environment and I desire that my artwork will encourage and motivate all to this end. Being an artist is very important to me. It has opened my eyes to the splendid colour and moods of this great country, the unique flora and fauna, and to the overwhelming responsibility we have to preserve what little is left”.
James was selected in 2015 to join the World’s leading Wildlife Artists group supporting the environment, The Artists for Conservation (AFC). Since his appointment James has had two of his works selected for several years for the prestigious Artists for Conservation exhibition in Vancouver Canada alongside many of the world’s top Wildlife Artists. Each year his artworks have been selected to appear in the AFC book and calendar. In 2018 James was awarded Best in Show and Awards of Excellence.
Each year from 2020 James has presented thirteen of his most current artworks in the Australian Geographic Art Calendar. The Australian Geographic Art Calendar has a long history for presenting the wildlife artworks of some of Australia’s finest artists so “it is a real honour to be amongst this group and to work closely with this organisation”. Some of these images have been produced as Australian Geographic Jigsaw Puzzles.
James is a proud supporter of Aussie Ark, one of Australia’s foremost conservation organisations whose vision is for creating a long-term future for our threatened Australian species.
More recently solo exhibitions have been a sellout and the demand for commissioned works increases. James last solo exhibition “Art for Aussie Ark” was very successful and raised much needed funds for this conservation organisation.
His work has been published in a number of magazine articles, The Australian Artist, Hunter Lifestyle, International Artist Magazine and Australian Birdkeeper. His work is also well represented in many private collections in Australia and around the world.
James’ giclee reproduction prints, greeting cards, placemats and coasters, calendars and Australian art gifts are available from Morpeth Gallery.
