About The Artist, Ian Wright
For 25 years I hosted one of the most popular TV Travel programs ever, first it was Lonely Planet and then Globe Trekker. It was broadcast all over the world and shown in 40 countries across 6 continents.
It’s hard to believe that it was the very first back-packing travel show on television, shown mainly on Discovery channel, Travel channel, Channel 4 & PBS, going out to millions of viewers all over the world. I was and still am, the luckiest man on earth!
This was the job description -
We want you to travel to the four corners of the world, doing the most amazing activities possible, meeting the most extraordinary people living,and seeing the most spectacular places found on earth. We’re also going to pay for all your flights, food and accommodation, plus you're still getting paid! and All you have to do is mess about in front of the camera. How insane, absurd and wonderful is that!
My travel career started in 1994 in S. E. Brazil and all in all, l managed to film over 100 shows, travelling to 80+ countries.
I loved every minute on it.
At last, I have finally sorted out my website , well.. by that I mean William, my Internet Guru of course, has designed it all for me as I am no friends with technology or computers and will never be. This is my Artist Website. I have accumulated a life times worth of work and only now have had a chance to actually put it all together on this online galley to sell.
It has been an exciting, insightful and intriguing process to finally be gathering almost 35 years of my creative artwork all under one roof.
What stuck me first was the varied and eclectic range of the collection. All the way from large colourful oil paintings, to miniature fabric pieces and a lot of dark canvasses in between.
Interestingly the bulk of my travel art work is mainly in my sketchbooks, which I always travel with. Most of my oil paintings are first developed from these drawings but then they somehow seem to lead me into different realms of creativity.
For instance, I can see now how I got so completely obsessed with the frozen Arctic wildness. During this period all I painted for a few years were dark frozen seas, giant ice bergs and old sailing ships.
This obsession stemmed from my very first visits to the Arctic Circle. Places like Greenland, Siberia, Norway and Canada where the harsh and vastly beautiful frozen environment absolutely enthralled me and wouldn’t let me go. I had to make a conscious effort branch out and enjoy using different colours again.
I then painted two large vibrant, colourful canvasses - Geese flying out and Spitfires returning home. It was like I had to shake off these dark, broody pictures and learn to enjoy using bright colours again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Arctic paintings but it was just time to move on.
After leaving school in enrolled on an Art Foundation course in Ipswich, Suffolk which first opened my eyes to a rich variety of different art forms. We were given the chance explore painting, printmaking, sculpture, life drawing, sewing, tapestry, jewellery and collage etc., which fuelled my passion for all kinds of mix-media.
I then enrolled on a 3 year painting course at the City & Guilds Art College at Kennington in London. Luckily enough for me, there were only about 250 students in the whole college so there was nothing to do but work, work , work.
I think that if I had have attended one of the large colleges with all its activities, distractions and shiny things that I would have been lazy with the art. But on saying that, we did had a mental time at Kennington and still worked very hard.
I think that college/Universities should be run similar to the work place. I if you can’t be bothered to turn up to class then you get kicked out, sacked. Places in college are like gold-dust and there are hundreds of gifted people always ready to take their seat.
In my last year at Kennington there was never one day when all of the students were in class and that's me being generous.
About 8 years ago my wife bought me a Singer sewing machine and l came to realized that I can use the coloured cloth, beads and silks in a similar way I apply paint and I have never looked back since.
Plus it’s warmer inside, than painting in my outside shed in winter...
or am I just getting older?