Wild About Life

Our aim is to highlight how human presence places an extraneous burden on our planet, we need to respect our earth with all its native species.  The world's population has doubled since 1970, threatening 1m species with extinction.

Since 1980 more than half the increase in food production has been at the expense of intact forests.  We are producing a mountain of waste and plastic pollution has increased ten-fold.  Live wild life trade increases the chances that virus can jump from one species to another and ultimately from animals to humans.  Some are now biting back (Bat Conservation Trust).

Marylin Orpin: 

I am an environmental artist with a degree in Fine Art from The University of Creative Arts at Canterbury.  Up until now my main focus has been on beach combing and collecting plastic to make my artwork but during the Covid 19 outbreak and self isolation I have ruminated on the bigger picture of how we humans are destroying our planet.

We are taking over our wonderful earth and ruining it with our own need and greed.  Last year I was privileged to visit The Galápagos Islands where humans are restricted and wildlife flourishes.  Truly a gold standard.  The world is a treasure trove of many vulnerable species and we must protect it.

Art can highlight this important issue and hopefully does during this exhibition "WILD ABOUT LIFE". 

Thelma Findlay: 

I’m an artist originally from East London who moved to Thanet 40 years ago, found a little bit of heaven and never left.

In that time the world has gradually changed.  So slowly that at first it was almost imperceptible. Which made it easy to ignore, easy to believe that this was someone else’s problem and that someone else would fix it.

Rain Forests began to disappear taking with them countless flora  and fauna and bringing strange climate changes.  All necessary for human life to be sustained, no matter the cost.  Until eventually the imbalance slipped too far.  The impact became so great that humans, who had forgotten they were animals too, found they were finally as vulnerable as all the others.

There was never a more appropriate moment to have an exhibition such as Wild About Life.  It’s a small but I hope not an insignificant voice of Art, encouraging the viewer to stop and consider what we are losing, why we are losing it and what we can do about it.

An alternative legacy needs to be left for the safety of future generations.

Please Do not look away.

This exhibiton is supported by the Coastal Community Fund.