ART FOR ANIMALS

Adding some further colour to our conference!

Please browse through the work of these inspiring artists & ‘artivists’ who have been using their art to raise awareness and/or fundraise for animal charities.

Martin Aveling

Mart has been shortlisted for the finals of DSWF ‘Wildlife Artist of the Year’ (WAY) the most number of times, and in 2021 he was awarded the inaugural ‘David Shepherd Art of Survival Award’. He coined the phrase ‘wildlife artivism’ in an effort to encourage stronger calls to actions in the

creative output of working wildlife artists.

“Things move so quickly these days that without ever showing the ugly side of protecting wildlife people risk forgetting it’s even there. We can’t expect people to feel motivated to take action toprotect wildlife if they think everything is OK. By highlighting, in art, the challenges faced by wildlife, it presents a more balanced and honest narrative. Art has an amazing way of letting us contemplate certain uncomfortable truths in a more palatable space. Good wildlife artivismdoesn’t ever compromise on sincerity.”

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Nina Rossiter

Amazon bestselling, award-winning artist and multi-award-winning author Janina Rossiter brings her passions together in her work: painting and illustrating children’s books. As an illustrator and author, Janina was inspired to write “Diamonds, Hearts & Sea Stars!” and “123 Who’s Cleaning the Sea?” because of her concerns for our environment. Her latest children books focus on plastic pollution and endangered sea creatures, and helping to empower young children to feel the need to protect our wildlife and to make a difference. Nina believes that, by creating art to raise awareness of environmental issues, we create a way to communicate, a visual language that anyone can understand. “I hope that through my art and my love of the sea, I can make my voice heard and make a difference.”

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Ben Carter

Ben believes better environmental awareness must precede meaningful action. Working in different materials and media, he is exploring how art can be used to communicate environmental issues, especially to young people, but also to society as a whole. Although climate change is at the centre of the challenges we face, the issues are manifold, and Ben’s aim is to explore all the major ones through visual art: to name but a few; loss of biodiversity; pollution of the seas; over exploitation of resources and waste management; and, deforestation.

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Sofiya Shukhova

Soﬁya is a Russian native Singapore-based wildlife artist and conservationist. Using her art, she urges public attention to lesser-known conservation topics. Both education and work experience in conservation help Soﬁya to be at ‘the heart’ of wildlife protection, making her art all the more powerful. She is a former winner in the Human Impact category of the Wildlife Artist of the Year competition and a judge of the Golden Turtle international wildlife photography and art contest.

She previously collaborated with various researchers and conservation NGOs (among them, ACRES, TRAFFIC, FLIGHT, Planet Indonesia, Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation and Creature Conserve).

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Endangered Species Mural Project, Center for Biological Diversity

This is a project to paint murals about endangered species in cities and towns across the US and potentially beyond. Starting in the spring of 2015, Roger Peet of Justseeds has been working with activists, artists and scientists across the country to coordinate the production of murals that celebrate the threatened species of different regions across the country. The first year’s murals included the Woodland Caribou in Sandpoint, ID, the Arctic Grayling in Butte, MT, and the Monarch Butterfly in Minneapolis MN. As the project grows, it’s hoped that more artists and communities can get involved in creating these community monuments to local and regional biodiversity, and continue to learn and teach about the threats that diversity faces.

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Lotta Teale

Lotta trained as a barrister and worked for 14 years in law and development. She started painting professionally in 2018 and has used her art to raise money for various animal causes. She painted these horseshoe crabs after learning about how they are used for the development of vaccines. The cat is her own!

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Anna Garrett

Anna Garrett adopts a methodology of drawing as ecological activism. She is concerned with the importance of wildness in the in-between patches and ecotone of urban/suburban environments, as well as symbiosis between plant, insect and human. Playing the role of amateur entomologist in living ecosystems, she focuses the ‘slow gaze’ of drawing as a method to connect to multi-species relationships and aliveness itself in an entangled, biodiverse web. She runs drawing in nature workshops to facilitate a ‘being with’ connection to non-human nature. Anna completed her MFA in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London and has exhibited in the UK and internationally. Recent project addresses the critically endangered Mexican Ajolote, the socio-ecological system at Xochimilco, and collaborative conservation efforts between local Chinampa community and UNAM university scientists. Sketches from the Ajoloteria project were on display at Brown Arts Institute, Rhode Island at Re-Examining Conservation, and will be shown in an upcoming solo exhibition at Na Tlali in Mexico City.

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