(Seychelles News Agency) - A famous artist in Seychelles -- Michael Adams -- launched a new book on Friday that showcases 46 years’ worth of paintings, mostly of scenes inspired by the country of coco de mer and black parrots.

Titled ‘Michael Adams - A Monograph’, the 393-page hardback book consists of Adams' biography as well as 275 full-colour images of his paintings. The paintings were done during his travel and stay in Africa, India, China and Seychelles.

Launched at La Grande Maison, La Plaine St Andre, Au Cap, ‘Michael Adams - A Monograph’ can be purchased at Antigone and big hotels for $106 (SCR1500). The book is also available online at https://michaeladamsbook.com/

“Buyers will find identifiable bits of Seychelles and emotional experiences, landscapes, people, people in landscapes. It is the passage of time put together by colour, footprints of colour and conversations in colour,” said Adams.

For the painter, his favourite pieces in the book are those portraying bamboos of Seychelles.

Born in Malaysia in 1937, Adams is a professional artist specialising in colourfast watercolours and silkscreen prints of people, land and seascapes. He has held exhibitions in many countries and in 2001 he was awarded the Member of British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to art in Seychelles.

Adams, who has been living and working in the 115-island archipelago in the western Indian Ocean since 1972, added that the book will be a collector’s item for anyone with a passion for the islands.

Adams is a professional artist specialising in colourfast watercolours and silkscreen prints of people, land and seascapes. (Salifa Karapetyan, Seychelles News Agency) Photo License: CC-BY

“Looking at Michael's paintings, you can sit where he sat when he made them, you can feel what the weather as he felt it and you can hear the same cascading water,” said Martin Kennedy, speaking in his capacity as the best friend of Adams.

He added that Adams paintings have the ability to transport people through time and space, “inviting us to reconsider and redefine ourselves.”

“The effects of Michael’s painting on his audience is one reason why this book will be so important,” said Kennedy.

It took Adams and his team around six months to put the book together. He said that not all of his paintings have been included in the publication.

“It is a sample of different periods and different countries. It was a challenging task to choose the content of the book and had it been only up to me, the whole book would have been of bamboos, but I couldn’t do that, I had to put what my wife and other people like as well,” said Adams.

This is the second book of the artist. In 2016 he published ‘Island Souls of the Seychelles’, a book putting together pages upon pages of beautiful pencil sketches of the Seychellois people dating back decades.

Asked when a next book can be expected from him, Adams said that he will be giving book making a break as there is a lot of work involved.

“In the future, there could be another book of sketches. You need only 15 minutes to do a sketch, which goes into a book,” said Adams.