Collection: Bowen Boshier

Bowen Boshier is a quiet, peaceful and thoughtful man who is truly at home in the regions that shaped him. The wilderness and natural expanses of the South African Karoo and the wilds of Botswana. This is where Boshier honed his artistic talent to become arguably Southern Africa's most celebrated pencil sketch artist.

"My mom travelled down from Botswana's Tuli Block region for my birth in 1964," he says. "I grew up in the wilderness along the Shashi River, which flows into the Limpopo River where Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa meet. My father was the game ranger there."

 Boshier displayed artistic talent from a young age and started exhibiting his work in the early 1990s. He finds pencil well suited to his passion. "I am inspired by my delight and endless wonder at the African wilderness's complexity, detail, and diversity. Pencil drawings manage to hold the expectant silence our African wilderness contains."

"Pencil, with its large range of tones, like black and white photography, can carry the essence of a subject. It is slightly abstract in that it shows forms or landscapes that we are familiar with, but without their colour. Our imaginations are compelled to step in and become involved with the image and imbue the work with the colour of our own feelings and experiences," says Boshier.

He is fascinated by detail, so each drawing takes a long time to complete. "I spend time on location, sometimes months in one place; walking and watching, sketching and sculpting. Creatures get used to my presence and carry on their life around me."

 His approach has been hugely successful, with his limited-edition fine art prints available in selected art galleries across Southern Africa, London, New York and Vancouver.

 His home remains in the wilds of Southern Africa, with base camps in Cape Town and the Klein Karoo valley.