Darren Woodhead is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London. A life-long naturalist, all his work is produced outside on location and drawn directly in brush. By working direct from life, he aims to retain the freshness and energy that working outside gives, working alongside the elements and outside conditions to breath a sense of being there to the maximum.
He is the author of two books, ‘Up River, The Song of the Esk’ (2009) and ‘From Dawn Till Dusk’ (2005). He exhibits widely and has won many awards including the prestigious Swarovski / Birdwatch magazine Artist of the Year twice. After receiving the Artists for Nature Foundation award, he has been invited to work on expeditions in India, Peru, Ecuador, Israel, Portugal, the Spanish Pyrenees and most recently Sark. He is a member of The Society of Wildlife Artists and has served on their council. His work is held in many private collections, including a commission for the Duke of Edinburgh’s 90th birthday.
He combines been a professional Artist with teaching, talks and demonstrations, thrives in this contact with the public and is so passionate about spreading his love of nature and Watercolour, and is proud to be an Ambassador for Carl Zeiss Sport optics.
A proud life-long Naturalist, Conservation is at the top of his agenda, and he has recently been part of two trips to Israel and Malta, where raising funds and awareness of the critical issues our Migratory birds face, raising over £27,000 in the process. He has worked with the Naturalists and TV presenters Chris Packham and Simon King, being ‘The Artist in Residence’ for the BBC’s Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch series and painting live on BBC2 as part of the process, was one of his proudest moments so far.
This exhibition at The Watermark Gallery is his first in a gallery back in his beloved home county, ‘I am so proud of my roots every single day,’ and though Scotland is my adopted home, no truer are the words that you can take the man out of Yorkshire, but never Yorkshire out of the man’.
‘I just want to help communicate the love and passion that I feel for the natural world that we are so lucky to have around us, we have to listen, nurture and saviour it and especially in the current climate. For me, I try and do this through working purely from life with Watercolour, a medium like nature itself that is so pure, delicately simple, yet utterly complex at the same time. Its just a case of balance.’
Darren Woodhead, March 2022
