An extraordinary memorial process is under way.
Rhinos slain by poachers are being painted as a form of creative elegy by Dr Div de Villiers, the former Eastern Cape Green Scorpions leader who took on rhino poachers in the province and brought down numbers of slayings dramatically.
The tall, bearded investigator, now retired from the government, has turned the emotions built up during this gruelling and numbing period into art.
One of his first paintings shows rhinos grouped as a family in their gorgeous Eastern Cape game reserve setting.
With him in this section of his colourful and distinguished journey through Eastern Cape conservation is his partner and art teacher, celebrated painter Juliet Greig.
She held De Villiers’s hand metaphorically during the process, but was also firm when it came to the work of making art.
The painting was still drying when it was displayed at a talk De Villiers gave on the power of art to raise issues of conservation and the environment at the monthly dinner held by the Gonubie Estuary and Marine Community (Gem) at the Gonubie Sports Club.
De Villiers said one of the rhinos in the painting had been created as a memorial to a rhino slaying he had investigated.
“These were some of the rhinos which existed on the Mpongo Private Game Reserve before their demise as a result of various disasters, including poaching,” he said.
In his speech, his voice rose and he became visibly strained as he raised a slide of four rhinos lying on their backs, chunky limbs in the air like toppled statues.
He said the first act of poaching had left him and the team of officers and Shamwari Private Game Reserve rangers and staff shattered and disheartened.
As the numbers of carcasses and bleeding dying rhinos rose, he had become numbed and had gone into action mode.
However, after the arrest and jailing of the notorious Ndlovu gang, and his retirement at 60 as director of compliance and enforcement at the department of economic development environmental affairs and tourism two years ago, he has had time to reflect.
I intend recording, through art, some of the Eastern Cape rhinos which lived on iconic provincial game reserves before being poached
“I intend recording, through art, some of the Eastern Cape rhinos which lived on iconic provincial game reserves before being poached.”
He said art and activism, such as conservation work he had done, had a long history.
While the work of artist Brett Murray, the Spear which depicted then-president Jacob Zuma in a strident revolutionary pose emulating Vladimir Lenin but with Zuma’s private parts exposed, had evoked outrage and controversy, it had made its point.
And after the painting was vandalised by two men who painted a red cross over the offending area and daubed much of the rest of it with black paint, the price for the work went up.
Art, he said, had the power to raise issues of concern and this was one reason he had chosen to paint.
Greig praised De Villiers for his commitment and how he had carried on despite a few delicate moments in the painter-teacher process.
The painting carries both signatures.
Daily Dispatch
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