Chimpanzee Painting

Animals in law are treated as objects, they have no rights, but in 2014 the Nonhuman Rights Project brought a case to court in New York about ‘Tommy’ a chimpanzee, kept in a cage in a Manhattan warehouse to try to establish rights for ‘Tommy’ they lost the case but will appeal, as the lawyer put it, the chimp has no more rights than a table or a chair. This would seem intuitively wrong but how one protects and defends animals and if they were extended rights is difficult to see who would bring a case as an animal could not do this. More recently The Nonhuman Rights Project brought another case to court on behalf of two chimpanzees Leo and Hercules used for medical experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island. For the first time in US history, a judge has granted two chimpanzees a petition – through human attorneys – to defend their rights against unlawful imprisonment, allowing a hearing on the status of “legal persons” for the primates. I started this image in 2015 at the time of hearing about these two cases, I never finished it other projects and ideas came along, at a loose end recently I finished the image. I drifted into vegetarianism around this time for various reasons but as someone who ate meat for 62 years of my life would find it difficult to moralize on the rights and wrongs of how we treat animals but I certainly feel uncomfortable about keeping a chimpanzee in a cage in a warehouse no matter how large the cage. The very fact that it took me three years to complete the piece would suggest I still have issues to resolve on animal welfare, so if you are tucking into a steak this evening, enjoy! You will find a short essay on why I paint and draw animals on my blog at https://ahardworkingartist.com/page-7-paintings-and-other-artwork/

Painting:Acrylic on Paper

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:33.9 W x 45.7 H x 0 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.