reaperdarling

Braved the rain to take these photos right after they came out the kiln

Actor Patrick Swayze at home, Lakeview, California, USA, 1995

This 36x48” oil on canvas diptych is part of a series I’ve been working on based on the thylacine, also known as the “Tasmanian Tiger” or marsupial wolf.

One of my biggest interests has always been animals, and in particular the ones that humans have destroyed. Every lost or vanishing species is its own story, and as an illustrator theirs are the stories that I am the most invested in telling (hence the blog).

The thylacine is one of the classic examples of human-caused extinction: an utterly unique creature, deliberately exterminated due to a combination of greed, ignorance, hubris, and fear.

Scared or anxious marsupials have a habit of stretching their jaws in a display known as a yawn (you’ve probably seen memes of opossums that look like they’re yelling—it’s the same thing). This display was especially striking in the thylacine, which could open its jaw to over 90°. Some of the most famous photos of thylacines capture them in this attitude of fear.

Unfortunately for the thylacine, humans have more direct methods of dealing with the things that scare them.

The title of this pair of paintings is ‘When They Are Frightened, They Show Their Teeth’.

The overall series is called ‘Here Be Monsters’, as a nod to both the far-flung environs of the thylacine, and the behavior of those who intruded upon it.

I can finally share these with people ^^ here's a thylacine keychan design I made, you can get these on my ko-fi

The Thylacine Sew-On Patch is now available on my Ko-fi shop!!

88 years ago the last known thylacine passed away in Hobart Zoo, marking the species' extinction.