Roger Swainston
Roger Anthony Swainston (born 7 May 1960, in North Cotswold, Gloucestershire, UK) is an Australian painter, naturalist and zoologist. He is one of the most recognised artists of the underwater world. Biography Swainston was raised in Yealering in the Western Australian outback surrounded by wildlife. The unique Australian flora and fauna fascinated and inspired him from an early age and he has drawn and painted it since childhood. In the late 1970s he travelled and worked around the north coast of Australia on fishing trawlers. The endless variety of undersea life he encountered in their nets encouraged him to undertake further studies and he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a degree in Zoology in 1981. His art is self taught. "I've always drawn, even when I was really small. I wanted to be a natural history illustrator." He then worked in the fish department of the Western Australian Museum and took part in a variety of scientific expeditions. These included surveying the fish fauna of Western Australia's south coast with the Museum, the deepwater fauna off the northwest shelf with CSIRO and the reef fauna of Papua New Guinea with CRI. During this period he also illustrated