You can walk into most bookstores around the World and you are likely to find a number of coffee table books about Wildlife, many of them beautiful and colourful. However, you are now about to experience a whole new way of seeing Wildlife – through the eyes of renowned South African artist, Lisa Halstead. In those other books, a camera re-creates the image in a disciplined way. Lisa creates an image from her heart, that comes to life through her hands in a (personal) loving way. You get to see the animal through Lisa’s eyes. She enables you to truly connect with the animal because her images capture the essence of the creature. Just study the eyes of the animals she paints. In each and every case, you can sense the animals through her renditions. Lisa has always had a love of nature and animals. One of her favourite poems, written by Walt Whitman is called ‘Leaves of Grass”, which starts with: “I think I could turn and live with the animals”, which pretty much describes Lisa’s own feelings. In Lisa’s own words, “My desire when painting animals is to try and capture something of their inner beauty, their essence.”