Wildlife artist Leigh Rust and myself have collaborated on an exhibition of chimpanzee paintings designed to raise awareness of chimpanzees and the work surrounding them. We held this exhibition at Monarto Zoo and money raised will go to Monarto, The Jane Goodall Insitute and the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone, West Africa. We timed the exhibition to coincide with the dedication of Monarto's new chimp enclosure by the legendary Dr Jane Goodall and we were extremely fortunate to have her open our show too.
Here I am meeting Dr Jane Goodall, DBE, United Nations Messenger for Peace and founder of the Jane Goodall Insitute, as she opens our show. Leigh Rust is on the right and Steve Callery is between Jane and I. Without Steve's help, the show would not have happened

Jane with Dr Chris West, the director of Adelaide and Monarto Zoos and one time director of London Zoo. He has been a huge supporter of our show.

I have something in common with Dr Goodall. Both she and I are proud owners of original Leigh Rust paintings. This is the beautiful portrait Leigh did for her as a present for opening our show.

Here's my my son Brock taking photos

We were honoured to meet the premier of South Australia (and a huge supporter of ZooSA), Mike Rann. On this day, he donated huge sums of our taxpayer's money to the zoo, something I am very glad about.

This is Dr Carla Litchfield, the president of the Australasian Primate Society. She was the fist sale of the day and gave us some huge credibility. She is someone I admire and yet again, it was a pleasure to meet her. The piece she bought was Leigh's "Escaping the Fires", a piece that tells the story of the tragic degradation of the homeland of chimpanzees, but one which also gives the promise of hope that with our help, they really can escape.

One of my sales and me working on a cheetah, my demonstration piece. It was great to meet people this way and it really does generate conversation.
The following photos are of the exhibition setup itself and my own paintings in it.




"From the Darkness into the Light" "Penny for your thoughts"

"I remember a time..."

"Bruno" "Contemplation"

"Time to Think"

"Curious" "Worried"

"Zoyas"

"I've tasted better"

"Curious 2" "Pinkie" (the world's only known albino primate, unfortunately not with us anymore)
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