When Shane Couch was only 13 years old, they told him he wouldn’t be an artist. An unremarkable student from a working class family in a small Lancashire town, he was obsessed with drawing ships and boats and nautical scenes that reminded him of the stories his grandfather would tell about serving in The Royal Navy through World War II. And Couch was talented. But, according to his art teacher, so were lots of kids in England. And kids from Lancashire didn’t go anywhere. “So my mum came home and told me, basically, forget about art,” Couch says. He was to be an engineer, enrolled in physics, metalworking and maths. At least there was technical drawing on the syllabus, he told himself, and he put away his pencil.

Today, Couch is an international marine artist, represented in galleries around the world, with work sold in both Sotheby’s and Christie’s auction houses. And this month, his latest collection of large-scale nautical oil paintings makes its world debut at Palm Avenue Fine Art Gallery.