Postbaccalaureate student at Baylor University, Clara Dutton, recently created a breathtaking piece of art that calls attention to the inhumane practice of elephant poaching. Art can move people in mysterious ways, and that’s one thing Dutton is relying on, as her 10-feet-wide and 7-feet-tall oil-on-canvas is as much a piece of advocacy as it is a piece of art.
Dutton recently told Newswise, “I’m a Christian, and I’m an artist, and my faith influences what I do.” She went on to tell Newswise, “Our responsibility to this planet is taking care of it, but we’ve fallen out of that.” The article continues:
“The people who are doing this are not moral,” she said. “They want every penny they can get. They kill the elephant and take its face off. Some hunters who use snare wire don’t check for a month, and an animal will either bleed or starve. Elephants mourn; they bury their dead with tree branches.”
Dutton’s piece, entitled “The Harvest,” shows a fallen elephant who has been decapitated, with life-like severed tusks on each side of the painting. Pictured on the lower part of the painting are three ivory elephants — just one example of many of the stupid things for which people exploit and abuse animals.
“The Harvest” by Clara Dutton