AJ Burns painted prodigiously as a child but was “actively discouraged” by his teachers and family from taking art in high school. He swapped paint for a set square, ruler and pencil, focused on maths, and went on to study civil engineering.
After years as a successful entrepreneur in the UK and SA, he founded a vodka distillery and then Covid prohibition hit. At a loose end, AJ attended an art class with an old friend and a good 35 years after he’d laid down his brushes, he found himself “playing with acrylics” in a neighbour’s garage.

He was intrigued to see how the paint moved but there was no electricity in the garage to move the paint with a hair dryer or any other equipment. So out of frustration, he blew the paint with his mouth to see what would happen and loved the way one colour moved through another.

Three years on and AJ is still literally breathing his life into his large, expressionistic fish artworks: he lays down one paint colour, drops a second on top of it and then blows the second colour through the first, creating vibrant movement. The effect is a burst of energy, colour and texture that evoke a range of emotions.

“I love the unpredictability of it,” he enthuses. “The paint seems to come to life - it keeps moving even when I’ve finished. And the colours change during the drying process.” (This can take up to two weeks in winter as it’s often 3 or 4mm thick.) “It’s always exciting to go back the next day to see what’s happened to the painting.”

AJ’s work has been sold to clients around the world and is currently represented in selected South African and UK galleries.