Matamua Arts Photo Blog

Elephants on the Edge II is the second installment in a planned series showing Elephants gathering at the edge of a cliff. (Yes, I’m aware that I am perhaps not the most creative artist when it comes to naming my own artwork). I know its hard to see in this small picture, but there are three elephants here. One at the vary edge of the cliff, one coming up from behind, and another way in the back coming around the bend.

In the first installment (you can see it here), the emphasis settled on showing that the elephants were being driven from their natural habitat (by man). However, the real underlying point for me with this series has become that the elephants are choosing to commit suicide. With this second installment, I wanted to make that more clear.

As for the design of the picture, I knew I wanted the frame to be dominated by a shear rock face, with just a touch of color and activity near the top. I decided to go with palm trees to lend a sort of tropical paradise feel, and to better suggest that the elephants were being kicked out of paradise.

I decided that nowhere in these pictures will you actually see an elephant leaping to its death. I feel its important that this series function first and foremost as a collection of ‘interesting and pretty elephant pictures’, and not depress people outright.

…but between you, me and the light post over there, that’s what’s happening.

You can purchase a print here.

See all my artwork here.

Elephants on the Edge: a series of pictures all depicting elephants standing on the edge of various cliffs. The image below is the first in this proposed series, entitled simply Elephants on the Edge.

All the pictures in this series will look different from each other, with the exception that they will all share similar themes. In the case of this first piece, I wanted to make it clear that the elephants have been driven far from their natural habitat.

I think the cliff face in this picture represents the ends of the earth, in the literal sense—as in sailors of old sailing to the ends of the earth. The elephants come to this place because they are being driven out of their normal habitat. There simply is no where else they can go.

So, here they stand on a precipice.

The subtle (or maybe not so subtle) suggestion here is that the entire species stands on the brink of something catastrophic happening, with the time to act being now.

Like so many of my scenes, Elephants on the Edge began with just a flash of imagery in my head. I had a vision of Elephants standing on a cliff face, and nothing else. I thought it would make a good picture so I pursued it, without knowing what it meant. And that’s par for the course for me …that is to say, the meaning behind the image often never becomes clear to me as I’m working on my art. And that’s okay, because ‘true meaning’ should lie with the viewer, not me. My job is simply to bring the images in my head to life.

However, the meaning of this image did become clear to me, just as soon as I began working on it. I knew the elephants were coming to this place to commit suicide. If that’s not so evident in this first installment, it will be in the next…

You can purchase this print here.

See all my artwork here.