Businessman Oliver Dearing is treating art-lovers to paintings

created in the shanty towns of Africa.

The 21-year-old has invested £6,000 of his student grant into an enterprise selling the works of art over the internet.

Oliver was so taken with tribal art he saw while travelling across the continent he was certain it would be appreciated in Brighton.

Oliver's passion for Africa runs deep. When he was five, his father William bought an avocado farm in Tzaneen in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.

Oliver said: "We had black people working on the farm and they lived outside our compound which had a 9ft fence around it.

"When I was eight my godparents came over with their kids who were a bit older and they said I was racist because I wouldn't go to places where there were black people.

"They explained to me about racism but even though they told me about it there was nothing I could do.

"If a white person went into a black restaurant he would get hassled and vice versa.

"White people and black people had their own places and that's what they were used to."

Oliver attended an all-white school until it was discovered he was dyslexic.

He then boarded at a black school and attended daily lessons at a specialist school.

He said: "That was the worst year of my life because I was bullied every day for being the only white kid. There were a couple of mixed-race kids who no one spoke to but they didn't speak to me either."

At ten, Oliver and his mother returned to England but his father stayed in South Africa.

He said: "I was made fun of because of my South African accent and I remember asking other children why they were playing with black kids but that soon went."

Oliver, of Gloucester Road, North Laine, Brighton, has since returned to explore his childhood home. He stayed for eight months, seven more than planned.

He went into Mozambique, despite the perils of travelling in a country ravaged by war and the devastating floods of 2002.

He said: "When I went there in 2001 they were still clearing landmines.

"There is only one concrete, potholed road along the east coast that runs the length of the country.

"It is dangerous to stop, even for the police."

Oliver went back again this year to start collecting paintings to bring to Brighton.

He flew to Johannesburg and drove to his father's farm through areas almost as risky as Mozambique's capital Maputo.

Oliver said while 14 white farmers had been killed in Zimbabwe, 1,300 had been shot in South Africa.

He said: "My dad has a shotgun, a 9mm pistol, armed security who turn up if the alarm goes off, an 8ft electric fence, a fence round the garden and electric gates.

"It it is very difficult to survive as a farmer. He has had to add chickens to his avocado farm because there is no profit in avocados."

In Mozambique, Oliver collected more paintings to bring back as samples and found a buyer who could act as a middle man while he ran his business from Brighton.

He said: "Many of the paintings are done in shanty towns in the north of Mozambique. I don't think I'd have the guts to go into those myself."

Oliver is keen to give something back to the countries helping him get his first business off the ground.

His stepmother, Cecile Roberts, is teaching at a women's project near his father's farm where locals design and make batiks for sale.

The money will go towards finishing the school building with any extra cash invested in the village.

Oliver plans to return later this year to find more artwork.

He said: "There are so many possibilities and I think it is the sort of thing that could really take off in Brighton because I haven't been able to find anything like it in the shops."

The response has already been encouraging with businesses keen to display his paintings.

They include seafront bar Envy and Starbucks in North Laine.

Oliver hopes to sell through similar exhibitions and via his web site, www.deepestdarkest.com, which will soon be up and running.

He is holding his own exhibition at an African art evening at The Gallery, Pelham Tower, Whitecross Street, Brighton, on March 23.