Island Beauty

Lucky me! I’m currently visiting my home country of Mauritius. I drew this before arriving; not as a landscape that directly resembles features of the geography, but as an ode. As I’m sitting in the car on drives around the island, these are the impressions I get: green mountains, bodies of water, the curves of the landscape.

Now that I am here, I am too entranced by this place to draw! But my feelings of awe are side by side with sadness. We humans truly do not deserve this beautiful land. We never have. Since we arrived hundreds of years ago, we plundered the Dodo and many more of nature’s gifts. I fear that soon, these drawings and whatever is stored in our minds may be all that is left.

Illogical Sea Beings

I don’t remember when I started drawing all of these sea creatures.

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They flow very naturally out of me. Could it be the influence of Mauritius? Island belonging permeates through every part of you; island people can attest to that. It must be.

Or maybe it’s specifically my grandfather’s stories of finding beautiful shells in unattended coves. Stories he can still tell, although his mind is fading.

Why am I being so fussy? I know that it’s all of the above and everything in between.