Charlie Drawing

Astra’s surreal-realism pen and ink drawings are inspired by her lifelong love of wild animals. Toying with the surreal, Astra plays with juxtapositioning wild and endangered animals with a familiar and easily recognisable splash of colour. From a hungover rhino in ‘The Morning After’ to ‘Tiggy Stardust’, humour can be found in many of her works and titles. In both the ’Chubby Unicorn Squad’ and ‘Unicorns do exist’ series, Astra questions societies obsession with fluffy unicorns. Adolescent Rhinos are answering back, “We are the unicorns”. Astra donates art to conservation charities each year to help protect the beautiful animals she loves to draw. Her work was exhibited at COP26 Blue Zone, United Nations Climate Change Conference 2021. Astra was invited by Saatchi Art to participate in the first Gallery collection of NFT’s and was one of just 154 international artists to be included. The collection was released in Jan ’22 and sold-out within minutes. The collection is based on Van Gogh avatars, Astra created 20 pieces, available to purchase again on Opensea. Astra’s work is sold internationally with gallery representation and has written, illustrated and published two children’s books. Outside of her studio Astra is a passionate explorer and a lover of nature. She loves to travel off the beaten track and there is nothing she enjoys more than to embark on an adventure. Since her mid thirties Astra has hiked in numerous far flung places and cannot wait to be able to tick off more trails from her list of hiking dreams. So far these have included the base camp of Mount Everest, numerous mountains in China, The Tiger Leaping Gorge, 1800 miles across the USA on the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, summiting Mount Whitney, Half Dome and numerous other mini adventures along the way.