Through this project, I am trying to raise awareness of the wave of extinction in the natural world by creating images of vanishing animals and birds and communicating this important environmental issue to the public. We come from nature, and without sustaining the balance of nature we won’t be able to survive. Using the medium of Japanese Sumi-ink brush painting combined with mono-print on Japanese paper (which are in themselves traditional sustainable materials) my image depicts sixteen endangered species in an abstract environment (showing the negative environmental impact of humans) walking away. One or two of the animals are looking back at us.

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Within the ecosystem, each species has a reason to exist and a link to each other, sustaining the balance of nature. But we have been destroying nature to build our civilisation. Animals and birds are vanishing in the world because of their habitat loss, poaching, exposure to toxic pesticides and spread of invasive species. Climate change has impacted on the world’s weather patterns. Severe weather has caused flooding and drought in some parts of the world. It has also caused Amazonian fires and fires in Australia, where lots of animals are losing habitats and dying. We are losing the balance of nature and are now at a crisis point in terms of extinction. Every year the list of critically endangered species increases and some become extinct.

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Are we able to call ourselves human if we do not value the natural world around us and our fellow creatures?