day 269 – four slaughtering

These are three drawings that recently sold and have left me.  I’ve gone through so many transitions of ups and downs when someone buys one of my drawings.  I am always happy and encouraged because of it, but scanned copies, or photographs, or duplications just aren’t the real thing.  The drawings revolve around my ideas about morbidity and obscenity.  The photograph of the elephant being slaughtered was taken by my father when we lived in Tanzania.  Sometimes a wild elephant would wander into the village and only on those grounds that town folks would come together and kill the animal and slaughter the flesh for food.  Who’s to say the elephant was not lured into the town and deemed wild by those who want their ivory, I’ve always suspected.  But someone did approach my father and told him he better stop taking anymore photographs otherwise his camera would be taken from him.  Growing up with stories like this and with childhood vague memories of images surround my fascination and approach to drawing.

Special thanks to Arden Hill for inviting me to his creation of four for the day.  Please contact me if you are interested in collaborating with future projects.