Plight of the Flightless

My newest piece, Plight of the Flightless (70x100cm acrylic on linen canvas), may look like a cute homage to penguins, but there is a much more sinister story behind this piece.

A few months ago, I was approached by the amazing wildlife photographer and filmmaker, Stefan Christmann. Stefan had recently spent a prolonged period of time in Antarctica, photographing and filming the emperor penguins and was understandably concerned about the impact of climate change on emperor colonies.

Stefan explained to me that emperor penguins are facing huge threats. As the Antarctic circumpolar current gathers speed due to warming oceans, ice shelves are quickly collapsing, leaving penguins with little option but to climb to higher shelves or jump into the water before they have finished their molt.

Stefan very kindly offered up his amazing photography skills to help spread the word about the plight of this flightless bird and I got to work on creating a painting which would depict this.