WILDLIFE CALENDAR

In any creation, there is an idea.

The “Wildlife calendar” illustrations come from a personal need, that becomes more and more significant, to maintain a strong connection with Nature, with the wild, as my actor’s career was increasingly keeping me away from it. These drawings were first inspired from a book that was given to me in 1996 : “The Great Migration”, a book of photos by Carlo Mari and texts by Harvey Croze, prefaced by famous naturalist Peter Matthiessen.

The book speaks of the migrations of gnus, zebras and antilope of Thomson in Serengeti and Masaï Mara landscapes (grasslands), all throughout the year.

This book became soon to be a founding pillar for my artistic and, at times, scientific research on how humanity deals with eternal cycle of nature, time, endings and beginnings, life and death. Herewith came the intuition that these coming works would also need to be dedicated to the protection of natural habitats, of biological diversity, of creation, with the constant questions surrounding the way we keep in touch with ourselves, the world we live in, and time.

Years of research, thoughts about my circumstance as person who lived within an urban system but with a continued appreciation of nature, always in consideration of migrations and seasons, has nourished the importance of a “Wildlife Calendar” would find its shape, plasticity, meaning.

This is literary born in reaction to my urban life.

I had to respond to this through drawings, connecting to the wild. I had to translate these into drawings as a form of activism, an awareness born in the 90’s.

I needed at last to create a poetic and symbolic art work, a concept that humbly created new relations with art, with the idea the viewer could touch the art work, to consider what it is: a link between wildlife and us.

A living art work.

A new concept…

A drawing that can be turned over time…

A drawing that connects urban inhabitants to wildlife…

ART CONNECTING TO ONESELF

I always marveled at the great migrations. No matter where in the world we are, they cross our paths, surrounding us near and far. One only needs pay attention, raising one's gaze to the horizon or setting it upon the horizon to witness some of the most spectacular life, wildlife, phenomenons.

Born from evolution that measured with the consequences of time, what can we learn from these gigantic gatherings of lives that migrate ? Is this not a fantastic opportunity for Mankind, and its capacity to reflect on itself, to reveal its profound humanity ?

This long and personal journey and its economic, scientific, but more profoundly philosophical nature, raised in my view a fundamental question I attempt to answer with these drawings :

Distracted by its own creative intelligence, which has so deeply changed Humankind’s connection to nature, will people find their way to an equilibrium that the great migrations symbolize ?

This is how, progressively, the « Wildlife Calendar » came into being. An artistic and symbolic work, sensitive and humanistic. Why ?

It could be a humble invitation to keep these issues and considerations from falling silent once taken home.

A DRAWING REFLECTING MY VISION OF ART

I believe works of art must be an inspiration for every viewer.

By going beyond simple esthetics and pleasing the eyes, art can also teach us to think.

These drawings, inevitably activist and political, are made to take a positive view, poetical, and philosophical, on our world. By celebrating the beauty of it, the Creation, it might also increase awareness to what can be call the Commons, this nature that gives us life. Otherwise… what else?

SYMBOLISM

Beyond its structure and specific composition, every art work stands with symbolic elements such as local activism as well as the consequences of introduced species that open to new areas of research. Any viewer thus finds one’s personal way, one’s own understanding of the drawing and of everything it tells us.

COMPOSITION

Every day, I create art works entirely made by hand and spirit.

Every drawing is conceived with minutia and great patience.

The use of black ink, pencil and brush on paper, is a difficult choice but reveals a work inspired by artistic and originals traditions.

Every drawing tells the life of a migration animal.

From one country to another, from one continent to another, yearly or seasonally, (four times a year), the viewer is invited to turn the drawing on its side, connecting at least in that moment with the wildlife. It is a calendar and a geographical map.

ROUND AND SQUARE

On the occasion of my selection for maison Hermès international scarf design competition, in 2019, the “Wildlife Calendar” began a relevant evolution for these works: if Nature creates everything “round”, Humankind creates everything “square”. From here, I had the idea to delve into any drawing’s complete architecture - an architecture that would celebrate the beauty of Creation and provide symbols of art work capable of delivering, with a humble approach, a warning to us.

Maybe it is just about considering our responsibility to life on this earth and to seeing the beauty.

Through this new architecture, where “round” of Nature falls within “square” of Humanity, the “Wildlife Calendar” refers to our common responsibility to take care of our natural habitats.

IN CONCLUSION

I humbly wish to offer a new way to consider our feeling with an art work by the invitation to touch it and to connect with what it tells about the world and ourselves.

These living art works will go along the long path that stand in front of the environmental changes affecting, today and tomorrow, Humanity’s fate and thus our kids’.

Being intimate with Life is at the heart of my conception of art and its purpose.

Xavier Lafitte

« L’artiste n’est-il pas, après tout, le producteur authentique des objets que chaque civilisation laisse derrière elle comme la quintessence et le témoignage durable de l’esprit qui l’anime. »Hannah Arendt

« L’artiste n’est-il pas, après tout, le producteur authentique des objets que chaque civilisation laisse derrière elle comme la quintessence et le témoignage durable de l’esprit qui l’anime. »
Hannah Arendt