The Artist

Adrian Steirn, winner of the Nikon Africa Professional Photographer of the Year 2009 and overall winner of the Africa Photographic Awards 2010, has emerged as a leading wildlife and portrait photographer. This Lexar Elite photographer is celebrated for his unique ability to capture the profound grace and unsettling beauty of real Africa and its inhabitants. Based in Cape Town, Adrian immerses himself in the bush whenever possible, continuing an intimate relationship with untamed Africa that dates back some fifteen years. His work of the past decade reflects a strong background in portraiture and thorough understanding of the continent’s wild subjects, which has earned him the honour of WWF Africa Artist in Residence. Adrian is currently undertaking his largest photographic project to date, the 21 Icons Global Project, a visual celebration and intimate personal chronicle of the most iconic men and women who have enriched and enlightened the world in the 21st Century.

Adrian on his work, “All I can offer is my humblest interpretation of what inspires me about Africa. My African wildlife images are not a project or a study. They are images that I have shot for no other reason than they were beautiful for me.”

Adrian is an ambassador of Nikon and Gitzo Africa. His is represented by the Everard Read Gallery, South Africa.

“Africa with its resplendent landscapes, unique biodiversity and ancient human cultures has always attracted the world’s greatest photographers. All strive to unwrap this most subtle of continents and lay bare through their lens both Africa’s surface details and its viscera. Very few succeed at all. The rarest of these artists’s with cameras somehow contrive to succeed completely. What sets these profound photographers apart from their peers is a curious mix of talents, energy and an ambition to enthrall us with photographs of both the mundane and magnificent!
Adrian Steirn is undeniably one of these.”
Mark Read, Everard Read Gallery

“Adrian Steirn’s photographs have an inventiveness and wit. He is able both to perceive unusual perspectives on his subjects and - vital for a portraitist - is able to convince his subject to participate in his exploration. Together with this, he brings a technical mastery that is tested to its limits by his perfectionism.”
William Kentridge, Artist