Curious Kibabu Print

This is the very first drawing I did for my first solo exhibition when I was 18 years old and it is still one of my favourites today. This gorilla is what really first conveyed my style of large scale wildlife drawn in dark, soft, realistic and expressive charcoal. 'Curious Kibabu' was drawn from a reference photo I took for a old silverback that was keeping a watchful eye on the photographers taking photos from a behind the scenes viewing platform. He was very protective of his female relatives and his expression shows how he was not too happy that there were a couple of male photographers in the group. Kibabu passed away from old age in 2020 but let quite an extraordinary legacy behind. As he was the perfect lowland silverback specimen, he travelled the world living in multiple world class zoos, procreating and adding a very generous amount of offspring to the worlds gorilla insurance policy. He was a beautiful creature that served as a great advocate for his cousins in the wild, educating and fascinating the next generation of wildlife lovers and advocates.