Flight: artist Jeremy Houghton's bird paintings

Jeremy Houghton's beguiling paintings of flamingos and birds in migration are a treat for art lovers and ornithologists

Artist Jeremy Houghton has a love of birds, particularly flamingos and flocks in flight. He loves to capture birds flying in formation and the shimmering colour of flamingos seen from a distance. An exhibition of his works, Flight, was held at the world-renowned Slimbridge bird santuary in Gloucestershire 

Cotswolds-based artist Jeremy Houghton uses his paintbrush to capture light, movement and colour.

His bird paintings in oil, watercolour and gouache on canvas are divided into two sections: colourful oil paintings of huge flocks of flamingos on the ground and in the air, seen from a distance through the haze of the African sun; and monochrome watercolours of large birds in flight.

Houghton, whose style is semi-abstract and impressionist, became captivated by the beauty of vast groups of flamingo while living and working in South Africa. He loved to watch them in the changing light of their wetland habitat, and his paintings depict them as an abstract shimmering mirage.

The paintings are large scale - some 1mx1m.

Girls' Night Out 60x60 cms, oil on canvas
Bubble Bath Oil on canvas. 50x50cms
Jeremy Houghton
Who's Ya Daddy
Star Struck, 1mx1m, oil on canvas

His monochrome watercolour and gouache paintings show large birds in flight. 

Houghton says he's always been fascinated by the migratory formations of birds, and he's painted a series of works that evoke the essence of avian flight by focusing on the interplay of light and movement.