A Wild Welcome to the online space of artist and writer James Roberts

ART

Using the absolute minimum of materials – a brush, a few drops of ink, a splash of water, and a pinch of salt James attempts to capture the fluidity and movement of wild things, allowing forms to conjure themselves from the faintest outlines – ravens, owls, bears, wolves. This striving for an almost creaturely simplicity searches for grace through creative practice as light on the earth as leaves.

WRITING

James’s non-fiction book, Two Lights – Walking in Landscapes of Loss and Life, was published in March 2023 by September Publishing. It explores biodiversity loss through the metaphor of twilight.

An account of the search for the wildness left in our world – spanning continents and geological eras, skies and oceans, animals and birds, planets and stars.

“With dizzying acuity and insight Roberts paints a portrait of a life and its landscapes, creating precious connections with wild creatures and places, from swans in the Cambrian Mountains to wolves in the Pacific Northwest. By walking at dawn and dusk, in the two lights of awakening and deepening, through the stripped, windswept hills of Wales, and the jungles and savannahs of Africa, he tries to navigate from a soul-stripping sense of loss towards hope in the future.

In the presence of wild creatures he finds a way back to life.”