Martin Aveling

Mart’s passion for wildlife and art was born out of his surroundings at a very young age. While his parents were helping to protect critically endangered mountain gorillas on the steep forested slopes of the Virunga volcanoes, Mart picked up pencils and drew them.

The focus of Mart’s work is to shed light on the threats faced by wildlife through creative storytelling. In response to growing misinformation and shrinking attention spans, Mart coined the phrase ‘wildlife artivism’ to encourage stronger calls to action in the output of working wildlife artists. He has raised over £50K for wildlife charities from artwork sales, and recently turned his attention to improving access to art materials for underprivileged children.

Mart is a global ambassador for the UK’s largest pencil producer, Derwent Art, and his artwork adorns the cover of their Pastel Pencil tins – his favourite medium for over 25 years. He has been a finalist at ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ sixteen times, and in 2021 he was awarded the Inaugural ‘Art of Survival’ award in memory of the great conservation artist, David Shepherd.

Mart has held successful solo exhibitions in Kenya, UK and USA. He currently resides in Bristol.