Jim Naughten

Jim Naughten is a British artist whose work explores the complex and fragile relationship between humans and the natural world. Originally trained as a painter, he now works primarily with photography, digital manipulation, and, more recently, Artificial Intelligence.

Drawing from a deeply creative and classically trained foundation, Naughten champions new frontiers in photographic practice—where analogue traditions are extended through digital technologies and AI. His images—featuring surreal subjects such as pink zebras, neon gibbons, crested birds, and roving wolves—are vivid, unsettling, and dreamlike.

They explore the space between memory, imagination, and ecological anxiety. Through this lens, Naughten confronts the environmental crisis with unflinching directness, using the “shock of the new” to highlight the realities of biodiversity loss and climate change. His recent projects, Mesozoic (2023) and Biophilia (2025), reflect a growing urgency in his practice and a call to reconnect with the natural world.

Naughten’s works are meticulously constructed—painterly in their approach, layered and refined through time and digital technique. Influences range from the psychological portraits of Diane Arbus to the lush, documentary-style interventions of Richard Mosse and Patrick Waterhouse. He frequently collaborates with ecologists and conservationists, and has supported environmental initiatives including fundraising for the  Jane Goodall Institute.

His work is held in major public and private collections, including the Wellcome Collection, the Imperial War Museum, the Horniman Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Honolulu Museum of Art, and the Boca Raton Museum of Art in Florida. Through striking imagery and cutting-edge visual storytelling, Jim Naughten urges us to remember the wonder and fragility of the natural world—and our shared responsibility to protect it.

Preview catalogues and early acquisitions are now available by request. Please email: dean@michaelreid.com.au