PADDY STARLING – SOUTH AFRICAN LANDSCAPE ARTIST

Born and educated in KZN Paddy is a self taught artist. He had a spell trying his hand as a farmer, but soon enough found that landscape painting was what he really wanted to do, especially if the landscapes he was painting had running water in them. Although not a fly fisher himself, Paddy’s brother, Doug Starling, is and it was Doug who persuaded him that there was plenty of poetry in fly fishing just as long as you got the attitude of the angler right. And Paddy has managed just that where so many artists have failed. The anglers in his paintings look authentic, are never that boldly placed that they dominate a composition, but rather are a somewhat understated feature that adds a certain vibrancy to his paintings of rivers.

Steve Boshoff the bamboo rod artist and I recently visited Paddy at his home in Betty’s Bay. We were actually on our way to see Ed Herbst in Vermont. Paddy’s wife, Irene, provide coffee and biscuits and we talked art. Later when I showed Ed some of Paddy’s paintings he said, ‘My kind of art – virtually every painting resonates with me – magnificent stuff.’

A great admirer of the late Winslow Homer's work, probably the greatest fly fishing artist of all time, you will recognise scenes from Paddy's favourite painting haunts - the Leydenberg area, Clarens in the Free State, the Rhodes district and the Drakensberg area around the pretty village of Underberg.

Paddy paints on commission, has had many one man exhibitions and a great amount of success, both here in South Africa, and internationally.

For a more detailed viewing of his work connect to http://paddystarling.co.za/