Rob Owen was born in Shabani in the then Rhodesia in 1945, and grew up on two farms in the remote Northeast, in a time when leopards prowled the periphery of the garden in the hope of catching one of the dogs, and kudu and warthogs would damage the crops. It was a natural progression that he would end up farming for himself, and between 1975 and 1981, he was on his own farm in the Centenary district.

During his childhood Rob used to watch his mother professionally paint beautiful watercolour landscapes, and when a new edition of the Saturday Evening Post arrived, he would stare spellbound at Norman Rockwell’s incredible illustrations, daydreaming the context. This undoubtedly evoked his interest in art, and why he spent more time scribbling in class instead of paying attention to the lesson in hand. He was constantly in trouble for this, but his school at least saw fit to frame, and hang, two of his watercolours on the stairway of the Admin Building.

Like all Rhodesians of his age, soon after leaving school he was called up for National Service, and spent a great part of 15 years patrolling in the deep bush, not infrequently being subjected to often frightening, and sometimes undignified encounters with angry wild animals.

Rob learned to fly in 1971, and still currently maintains his flying licence.

He decided to sell his farm and move down to South Africa, arriving here in 1984, and before long had established a steel fabrication workshop, servicing the construction industry.

Desperately missing the wild bush of Rhodesia, he found some solace in the sea, and after doing a scuba diving course and earning his skipper’s certificate, spent much of his free time on top of, or under salty water, for the next ten years.

“I have long nurtured a dream,” says Rob Owen, “of being able to illustrate stories out of Africa, and this is the fabric from which I can now draw inspiration.”