Fern Floating Fine Art is a nomadic arts illustration business, currently making its way around the inland waterways of Britain.

I live on, work in and sell from my little boat ‘Fern’. I am a painter of fauna and flora and resident artist at Fern Floating Fine Art. My work is influenced by folklore, superstition, fireside tales, canal and traveller traditions, the macabre, Victoriana, and I take constant inspiration from the seasons and the countryside around me.

I am fascinated by animals and their connection to the natural world. Their interdependence with the world around them, that as human beings I feel, we have now largely lost. I use my exploration of animals and the subsequent paintings as an attempt to reconnect with nature and the forgotten elements of our own culture. One way that I attempt to do this is by always painting the creature whilst we are making eye contact. In this moment I feel a special knowledge is passed between us. I use flowers as symbolic signposts to direct the meaning of the painting. Each flower is carefully chosen to represent and to compliment the birds status and the meaning of the work.

I like to separate my subjects from their everyday existence and instead venerate them to icon status by infusing them with vast amounts of symbolic flora. I pay no regard to accurate or relative proportion, instead preferring to use this to further separate the subject by using the flowers to create busy almost abstracted backgrounds. This technique and my use of colour is very much influenced by my traveller culture where almost everything is highly decorative. My paintings reflect rather than illustrate the stories that I come across through my travels.

As an artist my mission is to create a feeling of connection and guardianship towards our planet and the life it contains.

John creates our beautiful handmade wooden frames, using wood that we have found and reclaimed along our travels.

All of the work is professionally printed and comes either mounted ready for framing or framed in our handmade reclaimed wood frames.