For centuries we saw them merely as carriers of a commodity, ivory. 

Irrespective of the sentient soul that carried this treasure, we ruthlessly gunned them down, reducing the largest living land creature to a pile of lifeless flesh so that a shelf, cabinet or mantle could bear the fruit of their burden and what we considered a status symbol.

Today a fraction remains of the once many millions of elephants.

Herds of elephants only survived if they had small or even no tusks at all, and the great tusker gene was simply poached and hunted almost into history. 

For those that do remain, human population pressure forces them into ever smaller spaces, causing inevitable conflict when they try to sustain themselves on pasture, orchard or garden where for millennia there had been savannah. 

But there is a ray of hope … tourism, education and an enlightened new way of thinking. 

Elephants, perhaps along with lions, are Africa’s greatest symbol of all that is wild. Ever increasingly we not only see the value of these animals in sustainable tourism, but we are also learning their value as a keystone species that shape the landscapes within which they live. 

Perhaps most importantly, we have learnt of the deep bonds in their family society, how caring they are for each other, and when we are respectful and gentle with them, so they respond in kind to us.

With this work I look to challenge convention.

I ask of the viewer to see the change I have taken in visual perspective to be a reminder to look past the elephant as an exploitable commodity without soul or feeling but rather look upon it as a symbol of a continent, and a lesson in how we as a fractured society should be more caring for one another. 

Available Sizes
Exhibition: 173cm x 116 cm (68” x 45.5”)
Large: 146cm x 98 cm (57.5” x 38.5”)
Classic: 118cm x 79 cm (46.5” x 31”)

Available Editions
Exhibition: 12
Large: 12
Classic: 12