ENDANGERED: Fine Art & Photography Contest 2022 Submission

My painting is bigger than life like its subject mandrill Maggie May. I helped cared for this extraordinary individual over a span of years while volunteering at Ape Action Africa primate sanctuary in Cameroon. Arriving in 2009 as a one-year-old bushmeat orphan one could tell instantly Maggie was an audacious personality. She was beloved among the staff and volunteers. After a reaction to a worming drug debilitated her she struggled to walk and feed herself and had seizures resulting in her living mostly separated but next to her group. I built her a sturdy ladder to her sleeping platform (away from ants and snakes) and every day gave her massage and treats. Maggie had a longtime older companion Brian and later became matriarch of a group of young orphans who desperately yearned for a mother figure. Maggie died in 2017 apparently from a fall. This painting is my tribute.