Earlier this year, some dear friends asked if I would paint them a commission and I agreed .

They , like so many of us, had followed in the press the curious story of ‘Wally’ the Walrus . Around the UK , Isles of Scilly and Irish coast people began to record sightings of this wonderful, rather prehistoric creature who was discovered swimming around our coastal waters looking for food and a good place to rest after his long journey from Iceland .

What he hadn’t banked on was the scale of interest his presence would create , he drew people from miles around, hoping to catch a glimpse of him and record his unusual antics on their mobile phones.

Needless to say , some boat owners were not very happy to discover that their vessels were sunk or damaged by this 2 ton visitor, as he attempted to find a quiet spot to nap, and hoisted himself into a variety of watercraft.

In the meantime the crowds grew , peace became a distant memory for this solitary creature , and so in the end he up’ed and left , returning to cooler and more the familiar climes of the arctic ocean.

I thought long and hard about his story and how I might paint him , and in the end , it was his need for peace, and the call of the wild , that triumphed over his novelty . I was mesmerised by his hand like fins, the textured skin that covered his great bulk, those bristling whiskers with pale tusks beneath. A spectacle and prehistoric presence …and that eye of providence , all seeing and knowing , he seemed to have come from another time another world . He was as I worked, a soul with great integrity, who lives and survives in a wild environment that few of us could truly imagine. So I returned him to that wilderness where he belongs, a mythological creature who now lives on in our stories . Behind him a howling storm is coming in and nets can be seen partially showing beneath the turbulent seas , and the row of boats, is a reminder that sometimes two worlds collide, and unexpectedly strangers meet .