Inspired by Nature - illustrator Ben Cavanagh
Ben Cavanagh is an artist living in Littlehampton, West Sussex who specializes in big, colourful designs and characters drawn from imagination.
When Ben was asked by ‘Wild in Art’ to paint an owl sculpture for this summer’s Big Hoot trail, he chose to decorate the big bird that would sit at the entrance to WWT Arundel Wetland Centre until Sept 1.
Ben said: “I have visited Arundel Wetland Centre many times with my family and wanted to paint the wildlife we’ve seen on site. I knew my two children would enjoy identifying the animals and looking for them on our next visit.”
Ben’s style is inspired by street art, graffiti, anime, mythology and the natural world. His owl is wrapped with illustrations of a Dalmatian pelican, a water vole, a kingfisher, and more species that find a home at the wetland centre and reserve.
When deciding which species to paint Ben Cavanagh said, “The mute swan was the first bird that came to mind when designing a Arundel wetlands sculpture. I wanted to capture the swans elegance and large, graceful wings.”
Ben painted a large kingfisher across the back of his owl. Its’s on many visitor’s wish list for sightings at WWT Arundel.
Regarding kingfishers Ben said, “The kingfisher is a fantastic little bird and I liked the idea of painting the kingfisher larger than all the others to show the beautiful greens, blues and oranges of the feathers.”
Coming soon this autumn is the return of common snipes to the wetlands. Ben loves the camouflage pattern on snipes and really wanted to paint their ‘tiger stripe’ pattern of browns and golds on his Fowler sculpture.
Each artist picks a name for their trail owl and Ben’s wife Kelly suggested the name “Fowler” for the WWT Arundel owl. This tied in nicely with our charity's full name, the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust. Ben didn’t realize at the time but Fowler is also the surname of WWT’s CEO, Sarah Fowler.
Ben has worked ‘With in Art’ before to paint a Shaun the Sheep sculpture for the Brighton art trail in 2023. His projects include painting large-scale murals, digital art pieces and creating one off art on unusual objects, from spray cans to train tickets. Ben’s website BenCav has prints and t-shirts for sale . Ben has also worked with Luminox watch brand, Aardman animation, Bangerz n Burgerz food chain, Artswork and many more.
'Fowler' is part of The Big Hoot public art trail of 30 large owls, all transformed by artists across Chichester and Arundel. Schools and youth groups will decorate 30 smaller owlets which will also be on display. Proceeds from The Big Hoot go to Chestnut Tree House. You can download an App to follow the owl trail online.
