Australian Peter Hickey is a painter of exotic animals par excellence. He has produced a total of 16 unbelievably realistic paintings executed with extreme detail for his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.

The photorealistic qualities of Peter’s oil paintings makes you jump. His animals are proud masters of their world.  The stern look – one waits for the eyes to blink – the quiver of the whiskers, the softness of his horses nozzles, the details of the fur/or feathers are to be seen to be believed.

He captures the various animals’ unique qualities, characters and most importantly their soul.  The artist makes this possible by incorporating ‘subtractive’ techniques normally exclusive to printmaking – the removal of paint from the canvas whereas normally the image is obtained whilst applying the paint.  He attributes his painting in monochrome (usually a warm black) to his early years as a press artist where all artwork was in black and white.  Years of drawing at Sydney’s Taronga Park Zoo and the Western Plains Zoo provides material for the artist’s work.

About the artist

Peter Hickey’s life’s passion as a painter/printmaker began around the age of fourteen playing truant from school to attend the local art school.  Later Peter enrolled in the National Art School in East Sydney to study art and was employed as a cadet press artist at the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper where his first job was to colour in the black squares in crossword puzzles. After touring Europe for two years, he enrolled in the Heatherley School of Art in London where he developed his passion for the art of etching which has continued throughout his life. Membership of the British Printmakers Council followed and he held his first solo exhibition in London.  Later still Peter taught art in Japan and travelled widely in Asia, returning to London for more exhibitions. In 1974 he was back  in Sydney exhibiting. In 1992 Peter and his wife Lesley settled in Sausalito, USA.  Peter was Artist in Residence at the prestigious Kala Institute in Berkeley, California. The artist currently lives in Sydney.