Behind the Art

"The Final Chapter", Ink pen and pencil on paper, 32 x 42cm

How do you draw something that is slowly disappearing?

In this drawing, a baby rhino stands in the foreground. Behind it, the faint, partially erased image of its mother lingers on the page.

She is there, yet almost gone.

The fading image is a deliberate reminder of the rhinos lost to poaching in South Africa — and of the young left behind when their mothers are killed.

There is a heartbreaking irony to this ongoing tragedy. Rhino horn is made primarily of keratin, the same protein found in our hair and fingernails. Despite beliefs in its supposed medicinal powers, there is no reliable scientific evidence that it possesses the extraordinary healing properties attributed to it.

And yet, rhinos continue to die.

I called this work The Final Chapter because I want it to ask a question that we should never stop asking:

Are we prepared to let greed and superstition write the final chapter in the story of the rhino?

Sometimes, art is not simply about what we see. It is about what we can no longer afford to ignore.

#BehindTheArt #TheFinalChapter #RhinoConservation #SouthAfricanArt #ArtWithMeaning