Shining Armor

Linoprint, 65 x 55cm

This artwork is part of “Communing with Creatures”, an ongoing series in my arts practice, and also part of the sub-series “Homage to Chelonians”. Turtles have admirable characteristics and are attributed with symbolic powers by many cultures. They also play an important part in my life—I am a field assistant of my conservation biologist husband Gerald, a world turtle expert.

This linoprint (edition: 21, hand coloured and black/white) is different from others in the series: there is no female figure, it excluselively shows a pair of Burmese Roofed Turtles, Batagur trivittata—stylised but very accurately.

This species has not been seen alive since 1935 when Gerald found two females and a male in 2002 and established the breeding programme for this critically endangered species at the Mandalay Zoo, Myanmar, with original funding from the Münster Zoo in Germany and Bradley Trevor Greive, author of “The Blue Day Book”). Two NGOs continue this programme—TSA (Turtle Survial Alliance) and WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society).

In addition to being in art collections in Vienna and Perth, this linoprint also went both to New York and Texas—purchased by the art collector Rick Hudson, president of TSA, and the art collector Brian Horne, freshwater turtle coordinator of WCS.