Evolving Art Series 11: Nature's distress call through art

 Evolving Art Series 11

Nature's distress call through art

Paintings by Dr Abe V Rotor

 

Satellite image of the Earth showing the major biomes - forest, coral reef, grassland, tundra, savannah, being consumed by wildfire and desertification, both induced by man's unscrupulous activities.  

Water pollution and global warming are destroying our coral reef, and consequently its productivity as an ecosystem.  Destruction of the coral reef is likened to the destruction of the rainforest.  Intrusion of settlements and farming on waterways and shorelines which we call reclamation exacerbates the loss of this ecosystem, indeed a requiem to nature. 

 Skeleton of a tropical rainforest after a wildfire.  Deforestation permanently destroys the forest, more so with the deleterious effect of slash-and-burn or kaingin farming on the  clearing.  As a consequence the soil is stripped away by erosion, siltation and flood.  Production falls below the marginal level, and ultimately the land is abandoned. Rivers dry, floodwater causes tremendous damage to life and properties of unimagined proportion - a fact that is happening today in many places of the world.  

      

           Where have all the Gardens Gone?

             Insipient stage of a dying garden

     

     Final stage and consequent death of a garden.

        Acrylic paintings by the author, 2015

Where have all the gardens gone,

the butterflies and honeybees,

dancing and riding on the breeze,

dewdrops sparkling in the sun?

Where have all the children gone,

reminiscent of old Pied Piper,

lured to a new land somewhere,

and never again to be found?

Where have all the ladies gone,

in "loves-me-loves-me-not" game,

though lose or gain it's the same,

flower and love knitted as one?

Where have all the good life gone,

Nature's gift to the living world

bound by a collective accord.

Lo! to man the lost prodigal son. ~