The preparation of "Share One Planet" Wild Animals CG Art Elites Invitational Competition started since the January of 2010. We have received warm support from various circles of the society, especially from both Chinese and foreign CG artists. They agreed to create promotion poster for free really offered us a great help during the preparation of our competition.

Following is an Interview with artist Franc, who created the posters named “Loneliness”.

leewiART: Hello, Franc.

Franc: hello, leewiART.

leewiART: First of all, we on the behalf of “Share One Planet” Organizing Committee, many thanks for creating poster for this invitational of commonweal and wildlife protection, and thank you so much for your support and participation!

Franc: I was excited when I received invitation from the committee of this commonweal event. It’s my first time to participate in this sort of activity, and personally I am quite fond of animals myself, so I am very happy that I can contribute to protecting animals.

leewiART: We know that now there are hundreds of wild animals are under protection in China, why did you choose Asian elephant as the protagonist of your poster? Could you give us some details about what’s the source of your inspiration?

Franc: Among many subjects, I chose the Asian elephant. The reason is very simple: a lot of people, including myself, have never thought of Asian elephant, would be listed as endangered specie. It leaves us an impression of meekness and hermitry. I never expect this animal is now being included into the list of near extinction species. I feel regret and anxious.
In the process of searching reference, I found that there is little information about Asian elephant out there, because the Asian elephant is smaller than the African elephant in figure. They don’t have huge body and huge ears or sharp ivories as African elephant. Asian elephant is less impressive than the African elephant from the photographic point of view, so there are few pictures of them. Even fewer artists have drawn them, and including in the animal protection category, African elephants are more commonly used as standard example . Therefore, I chose to paint Asian elephant.
    Also, I found among the little references I gathered, many Asian elephants are not enjoying a free life in the forest as people imagined. As the Asian elephants are mainly distributed in the South and Southeast of Asia, where people’s life quality is quite low, the elephants become vehicle. Elephants are used for transporting tons and tons of woods, stones. Burdens are dragged behind them, marks caused by rope can be found everywhere on their body. Some elephants are used for photo-shooting and performance. Their legs are locked by iron chains and whip wounds are not rare. That’s a scary thing to see.
    As commonly said that, elephants are friends to human being, but, how we treat our friends? I hope this activity will help people to realize the critical situation we are dealing with and inspire them to join the protection of endangered wildlife, including the Asian elephants. And hope elephants will regain their own space.

leewiART: Oh, I see. Could you tell us your creation idea of this poster?

Franc: For this piece, I used traditional realistic style to portray, didn’t feel like to pay too much attention to emphasis the atmosphere. An elephant, a temple, a ray of sunshine, a group of birds, these are enough. Elephant is standing there, with his eyes full of loneliness and sorrow. Organizers set the theme as 'Share one planet'. They firstly suggested me to sketch out some human characters, but I refused, because when I thought about the meaning of symbiosis and coexistence, simultaneously I thought of the idea of death. Since the protagonist is Asian elephant, I do not want to add extra elements in it. Perhaps some people will argue that the picture seemed a little bit empty as a whole, but this is just what I would like to show my viewers: if human being continues to consume resources and destroy ecological environment, then one day, this picture will become a reality, the title of "endangered" will be put upon us as well.

leewiART: Yes, that's why we organized this competition. We hope our voice followed by our action would raise alarm and attention of the people, even touch their hearts. Thanks again for your creation, and for opening the first chapter of hope for our competition.

Franc: I hope activities like this will be hold constantly. And hope that more artists will pick up pens and tools to inspire people to protect endangered wildlife and ecological environment, because we have only this shared home, the planet Earth.