Description
“Protea, The King” | Floral Painting by James Dick
- 16x20in.
- Oil on Canvas, 2018
- Unframed
Proteaceae based on the genus Protea, are mainly a Southern Hemisphere family with its main centres of diversity South Africa. Some Australian . It also occurs in Central Africa, South and Central America, India, eastern and south eastern Asia, and Oceania. Only two species are known from New Zealand, although fossil pollen evidence suggests there were more previously.
It is a good example of a Gondwanan family, with taxa occurring on virtually every land mass considered a remnant of the ancient supercontinent Gondwana, except Antarctica. The protea and subfamilies are thought to have diversified well before the fragmentation of Gondwana, implying all of them are well over 90 million years old. Evidence for this includes an abundance of protea pollen found in the Cretaceous coal deposits of the South Island of New Zealand. It is thought to have achieved its present distribution largely by continental drift rather than dispersal across ocean gaps.
About the Artist:
As a young man I was always outside observing my surroundings. I graduated from Elsenburg College Stellenbosch in South Africa with degrees in Agriculture, Horticulture, and Oenology. I first specialized in growing roses and fruit trees in the Eastern Cape region where I taught local farm workers to play rugby and established a rugby league while they taught me how to speak Xhosa.
I traveled the world extensively and then settled in Tucson, Arizona where I live with my wife Sarah and two sons James and Gordon. Sarah, Yale educated in art history, finally put the palette knife in my hand. I am self-taught and express what comes naturally to me. My paintings are full of movement, deep and rich. I let the moment, mood, and my education of the subject, inspire my art.
