WB Wynants

WB Wynants grew up in Singapore, and has been drawing and painting as far back as he can remember. He has had a lifelong fascination with nature, with a particular interest in big cats, hairy spiders, and venomous snakes. Throughout secondary school he was a volunteer in the reptile house of the Singapore Zoo. Here he indulged in the aesthetic beauty of exotic reptiles, and the incredible variety of tropical plants and flowers that the facilities were landscaped with. This is where a photography obsession started, with a Minolta point and shoot camera he got for his birthday.

During a photography course at Denison University in the mid 90s, he discovered that art and photography might be something which he could get good at with some practice. With the encouragement of a professor, one course turned into four. While finishing up his degree as a Jazz saxophone player, he created a black and white portfolio of botanical photography that was influenced by the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. During this time a happy accident happened where several rolls of medium format film were overexposed. Not wanting to waste them, he experimented in the darkroom with filters, exposure times, and different toners. This led to an effect where the plants and flowers looked like they were made of silver.

Having long since traded the old school darkroom for Adobe Photoshop, his current body of work builds upon the metallic plants and combines it with techniques that mimic the ‘Infrared’ effect where the subject appears to glow with warmth. He lives in Nuremberg, Germany with his daughter and has a business as a portrait artist and wildlife illustrator, drawing in charcoal and pastel. In his free time he likes to write stories, explore the older parts of the city, go for nature walks, and tend to his ever growing collection of orchid plants.