Growing up in Taiwan, a small, beautiful green island in the vast Pacific Ocean, I was always fascinated by the display of natural power of typhoon season. Those magnificent waves have become one of my major painting motifs. Recently, I am extremely honored to have my artwork “Golden Wave” chosen for the cover of the acclaimed book “Ocean: Earth’s Last Wilderness” by Sir David Attenborough and Colin Butfield (John Murray Press, London, UK, May 2025. John Murray published Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Jane Austen’s Emma, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.)
Below is a brief introduction of the book from Hachette UK edition:
From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species – and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science – Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet. And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
Cover art image: Golden Wave © Yeachin Tsai
Ocean documentary (Directors: Colin Butfield, Toby Nowlan, and Keith Scholey)
Ocean book review “The Standard“:
… David writes of living almost a hundred years during which time, “Marine science has revealed natural wonders a young boy in the 1930s could never have imagined. New technology has allowed us to film wildlife behaviour I could only have dreamed of recording in the early stages of my career, and we have changed the ocean so profoundly that the next hundred years could either witness a mass extinction of ocean life or a spectacular recovery.”
Happy 99th Birthday Sir David Attenborough! With co-author Colin Butfield at the Waterstones
Featured on Australia’s Book People, Reading Guide:
