A wonderfully eccentric and immediately recognisable original oil painting by Cornish artist Steve Camps, combining several of the motifs that have become central to his distinctive naive maritime paintings.
The Wild Swimmer presents an enormous black whale moving through an intensely blue sea, its scale humorously exaggerated beside a solitary swimmer. Beyond, a three-masted sailing ship crosses the horizon while a striped lighthouse stands on a rocky island beneath a broad Cornish sky.
There is a terrific sense of narrative to the picture. Camps deliberately disregards conventional scale and perspective, allowing the whale to become the dominant presence while the tiny swimmer provides both humour and a slightly surreal sense of jeopardy. The sailing ship, lighthouse, patterned sea and sharply defined coastline complete a composition that is unmistakably his.
At 66 × 78.5 cm, this is a particularly substantial example of Camps's work. The strong blue palette and large graphic forms give the painting considerable presence, while the simple frame keeps attention firmly on the image.
Details
-
Artist: Steve Camps (British/Cornish, b.1957)
-
Title: The Wild Swimmer
-
Medium: Oil on board
-
Signature: Signed lower right
-
Artwork dimensions: 66 × 78.5 cm (26 × 31 in)
-
Framed dimensions: 73.5 × 86 cm (29 × 33.9 in)
-
Condition: Very good condition
-
Provenance: From a group of works consigned for sale by the artist.
-
Date: Undated
Subject and Context
The Wild Swimmer brings together several recurring elements in Camps's maritime work: an outsized whale, a solitary swimmer, a traditional sailing ship and a lighthouse. The exaggerated scale and flattened perspective give the scene its characteristic humour and strong decorative impact.
About the Artist
Steve Camps was born in Cornwall in 1957. Camps worked as a builder and had long been interested in antique paintings and frames, but only began painting seriously following his retirement in 2023.
His highly individual naive paintings quickly attracted attention. Maritime subjects have become particularly associated with his work: sailing ships, lighthouses, small boats, swimmers and, above all, dramatically oversized whales. Their deliberately unconventional perspective, bold colour and deadpan humour give his pictures an immediately identifiable character.
His whale paintings have led to Camps being nicknamed “The Prince of Whales”, and his remarkable emergence as an artist later in life has become the subject of a developing feature-film project bearing that title.
