ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - They are not exactly starving artists sacrificing material well-being for the sake of their craft.

They don’t worry about where their next meal comes from or keeping a roof over their heads.

Heck, they don’t even sign their paintings.

These artists simply do what comes naturally to them as animals at Albuquerque’s ABQ BioPark Zoo, where all their creature comforts, so-to-speak, are met and the art they produce is sought after and valued.

Elephants, apes, alligators, arthropods, snakes, small mammals and big cats are all part of the zoo’s Art Gone Wild program, in which the animals distribute non-toxic paint on a canvas using their bellies, paws, noses, trunks, hooves, fingers or feet.

To be clear, we’re talking technique that has more in common with Jackson Pollock than, say, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

TECHNIQUE

The Art Gone Wild program began about a half-dozen years ago.

“We realized we could paint with the animals and people would want those paintings and would pay for them, so we knew this could be a fundraiser,” says Allyson Zahm, development manager for the New Mexico BioPark Society, the nonprofit and fundraising arm of the BioPark.

Depending on the animal, Zahm says, keepers may load paint onto a brush and hand it to the animal, or allow an animal to choose the color, or dribble paint on a canvas and let the animal rub, run, slither or walk across it, spreading the colors in unique ways.

The paintings sell from $40 to $260, and the money generated goes for the care of the animal artists, she says.

So when an elephant uses its trunk to slash a brush across a canvas or to spray it with paint, the money raised goes for the care and upkeep of all the elephants; when a lowland gorilla deliberates about where to dab a paint brush, all the great apes profit; and when a millipede and other arthropods leave behind their multiple tiny footprints, the entire Bugarium benefits.

MEDIA

On a recent weekday, senior reptile keeper Bob Gedraitis removes a 3-foot-long American alligator named Drogo from a tank of water and places him on the floor, where a canvas sits in the center of a small area lined with black plastic. Drogo appears uncomfortable with the slick texture of the plastic and after running across the canvas and leaving a few smear marks, makes a futile attempt to escape.

Gedraitis returns him to the tank and removes a slightly larger and more agitated gator they call “The Kraken,” after a giant legendary sea monster. A new canvas is placed on the floor and this time the gator leaves more interesting impressions of his underbelly and tail.

Painting for alligators as well as other zoo animals is an occasional “enrichment activity” designed to mentally and physically stimulate them, Gedraitis explains. “If it were done on a regular basis, it would become routine,” and not as interesting for them.

‘ONE-OF-A-KIND’ ART

“Obviously, I don’t think the animals know what art is, but they do seem to enjoy the activity,” says artist and art collector Mary Ann Weems, owner of Weems Galleries and Framing. She carries a number of animal paintings in her gallery, and collects some of the animal art, which she hangs in her home.

“And they’re in very good company,” Weems says, noting that her personal collection also includes works by Wilson Hurley, B.C. Nowlin, Sarah Blumenshein and Betty Sabo, among others.

“I think these animal paintings are collectible,” she said. “They’re one-of-a-kind and can absolutely never be reproduced, and I believe they will eventually have more value.”

Like human artists, when animal artists die their work often becomes more sought after and valuable. When Daizy the elephant died at the zoo in 2015, Weems said, “there was a run on her paintings and all of them immediately sold out.”

But the bigger reason to buy an animal painting is that “they’re fun, great-looking and dynamic,” she said. “It also supports the zoo, so purchasing them is philanthropic.”

Showing off some animal art paintings hanging in her gallery, Weems points to one called “French Boutique” created by Lucy, the zoo’s now-deceased Bengal tiger. “Look at this beautiful flow and incredible balance,” she says. “If you put this work in any major avant-garde museum in the country and gave it an elaborate frame and didn’t tell anybody, this could easily be seen as a painting by a famous artist.”

All of which underscores the old adage that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

Although pop icon Andy Warhol once cynically observed: “Art is what you can get away with.”

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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, https://www.abqjournal.com

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