Wild Horses in Mongolia

Mark Adlington is an artist who travels extensively in search of wildlife. He prefers to work as much as he can on site, observing animals in their natural environment before recreating them back in his studio in London. His research has taken him from Arabia to the Arctic circle — painting everything from polar bears to wolves, otters to buffalo.

Mark has just got back from Italian art festival Selvatica — a festival that showcases art and photography themed around the preservation of the environment. Mark displayed his work on the Przewalski horse, an animal once extinct in the wild. This horse has recently been reintroduced in Mongolia which is where Mark spent months painting them.

Best: “I was in the Gobi Desert when I came across a family living in the middle of nowhere. They went outside and killed a goat, and made me the best stew I’ve ever eaten.”

Worst: “Goat’s curd is a speciality in Mongolia, but it’s the only thing I couldn’t stomach. I think it has something to do with growing up in the west of Ireland, where milk would travel in for hours from Killarney, turning sour in the unrefrigerated lorries by the time it reached us. So when Mongolian families would offer me the rancid goat’s curd, I found myself storing it in my cheeks like a hamster until I could safely spit it out. But one family gave me a extra large lump to take away in my car. It was so generous that I felt compelled to keep it, but even the smell made me queasy.”