Description
Roy is an African chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes): great apes found across central and West Africa. Along with bonobos, they are our closest living relatives, sharing 98.7 percent of our genetic blueprint. Humans and chimps are also thought to share a common ancestor who lived some seven to 13 million years ago.
Chimpanzees are highly social. They live in communities of several dozen animals, led by an alpha male and his coalition of male allies. Research has shown that male and female chimps have individual personalities, with females being more trusting and timid. Grooming is an important part of their social life, helping chimpanzees bond as they remove ticks and dirt from one another’s bodies.
Although they normally walk on all fours (knuckle-walking), chimpanzees can stand and walk upright. Chimpanzees have long arms, hands, and fingers, which help them climb trees and swing from branch to branch.
As Goodall observed, chimpanzees shape and use sticks to retrieve insects from their nests or dig grubs out of logs. They use stones to smash open tasty nuts and employ leaves as sponges to soak up drinking water. And chimpanzees can even be taught to use some basic human sign language.
Threats to survival
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has declared the chimpanzee an endangered species—and the booming human population is primarily to blame. As humans move into more and more of the chimp’s geographic range, they clear away the ape’s forest habitat to make way for agriculture. Logging, mining, oil extraction, and new road and highway projects threaten to further degrade and fragment the chimp’s habitat.
Roy has been at Ol Pejeta since December, 2009, when he was only a few months old. Ol Pejeta, in their “Meet The Chimps” section of their website have this to say about Roy.
“Gender: Male
DOB: 2009
Origin: Democratic Republic of Congo
Roy was rescued from Rumbek, southern Sudan on 2nd October 2009, where he had been living in a 2ft by 2ft steel cage. and was housed at the KWS quarantine facility for health monitoring and observation. He was then transferred to the Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary on 14th December 2009. He is believed to have originated from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, probably orphaned by the illegal bushmeat trade and illegally transported to southern Sudan. He was confiscated by the Wildlife Conservation Administration of Sudan and handed over to volunteers who cared for him while a sanctuary was identified to transfer him to.
Roy has adapted wonderfully at Sweetwaters and is a happy and healthy chimpanzee. He is undaunted and this has elevated him to the position of a senior male within a very short time, very playful making friends easily and is extremely good friends with Romeo.”
About the painting:
This is for me, a rare multimedia piece, in which I used pen and ink to define facial wrinkles, watercolor to lay in the basic painting, with wet-on-wet bleeds and multiple coats of glaze, aquarelle colored pencils to highlight the minuscule pebbled wrinkles of his face and gouache to pick out individual hairs.I have been planning this work since 2017, when I took the reference photo of Roy during a visit to the chimp sanctuary at Sweetwaters, operated by Ol Pejeta. Roy had been sharing food with his friend Romeo, and was enjoying a quiet moment of repose.
I liked the lighting and was captivated by his pensive expression.He has a penetrating, almost judgmental gaze when you catch his eye, as if he is assessing your character for threat or opportunity. I tried to capture this expression in the painting so viewers would feel an emotional connection to this magnificent ape.
Make a statement in any room with this framed poster, printed on thick, durable, matte paper. The matte black frame that’s made from wood from renewable forests adds an extra touch of class.
• Ayous wood .75″ (1.9 cm) thick frame from renewable forests
• Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)
• Paper weight: 5.57 oz/y² (189 g/m²)
• Lightweight
• Acrylite front protector
• Hanging hardware included
• Blank product components in the US sourced from Japan and the US
• Blank product components in the EU sourced from Japan and Latvia
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.