29” x 37”

Mixed Media painting

This work describes not only a loss of individuals from the overall elephant count in the annual census but also the disintegration of elephant families and by extension the unraveling of deeply engaged elephant societies. We are losing an elephant every 15 minutes at the hands of a poacher, which means elephants are losing family members that are vital to their growth and assimilation of trans-generational knowledge. Without such cultural context, an elephant is no longer able to psychologically and emotionally be an elephant in the world today. Much like human beings, elephants are highly gregarious beings that mourn for their dead and connect to their living relatives routinely, when deprived of these natural interactions, elephants become disengaged, damaged and dysfunctional.