Alan Ainslie has established himself as a South African artist adept at capturing the spirit of wild Africa in his paintings. Alan uses mediums such as oil/acrylic, watercolour, pastel or pencil to portray the very essence of magnificent beasts such as the stealthy leopard, majestic lion, elusive nyala or awe-inspiring elephant. As he uses photographs as reference material, one will often find him in his dusty Land Rover, stalking some creature with his Nikon somewhere in the African bush. His painstaking attention to detail results in his paintings being very realistic indeed.

Alan's paintings and drawings grace the walls of art collectors from all parts of the world, including South Africa, Namibia, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America (USA). His work has also proved to be popular with celebrities such as the famous singer, Elton John who purchased a leopard study in pastel in 1993.

Alan was born in Port Elizabeth in 1952 and grew up on a farm near Graaff-Reinet in the Eastern Cape. After matriculating from St Andrew's College in Grahamstown, he attended the East London Art School under Jack Lugg and graduated in 1974. Starting off with paintings for a wildlife calendar in 1984, Alan participated in his first international wildlife exhibition at the prestigious Everard Read Gallery in Johannesburg a year later. At this exhibition, and those that followed, his work ranked in the same category as that of distinguished artists such as Raymond Harris-Ching, Keith Joubert, Kim Donaldson, Paul Bosman, Paul Augustinus and Leigh Voigt. With two solo exhibitions and various international exhibitions behind him, Alan is currently working on his third one-man exhibition to be held towards the end of 1997 at Palm Springs in Florida, USA.

Besides his numerous wildlife commissions and exhibitions, Alan has also been commissioned by Sun International to paint large canvases depicting the wildlife images of the Lost City. He has recently been invited to exhibit his art in the Palace of the Lost City at Sun City on a permanent basis. In addition, he has illustrated various stamp series for South Africa, Namibia and India. His stamp designs have featured at major international stamp exhibitions in Hong Kong, Toronto and Singapore.

Committed to the conservation of wildlife in South Africa and elsewhere in the world, Alan has donated part of the proceeds from his work to wildlife organisations such as the Rhino and Elephant Foundation, the Endangered Wildlife Trust and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).