Abstract
At a recent fund raising soiree of the Avicultural Society of Utah attended by the AFA Board, a magnificent painting entitled ''Kakapo", a spectacular rendition of the Owl Parrot of New Zealand, was auctioned.
This lovely painting together with other art and artifacts auctioned and raffled, raised over $1, 700 for the Kakapo project.
The generous and gifted artist who donated this unique work, Carel Brest Van Kempen, is resident here in Salt Lake City.
As can be seen from the accompanying art work, Carel has combined his extraordinary sense of perspective and composition with superb technique, scientlfic accuracy and artistic sensitivity, to produce some remarkably exciting and extraordinary work.
Astonishingly, Carel has pursued no formal training beyond high school drawing, and although a fulltime artist since 1983, has been commercially successful since fifth grade when he sold drawings of motorcycles at a quarter each!
Inspired by his Dutch forebears, Salvador Dali, Louis Agassiz Fuertes and John James Audubon, Carel identifies the phenomenally brilliant Raymond Ching as his favourite artist.
Though currently working primarily in acrylics, Carel has become proficient in other media, especially water colour and his technique continues to evolve. Each picture takes at least two months, involving meticulous research of backgrounds and plant material to ensure an authentic setting. Carel has travelled widely over all of North America and many of our wild places are depicted as backgrounds in some of his pictures.
In creating his pictures, Carel tries to '' convey something of the ecological essence of the creature depicted and visualize the appropriate environment to convey information on its lifestyle'.'
A falconer and aviculturist since childhood, Carel has won numerous prizes in art exhibitions around the country, most recently taking Best of Show at the prestigious Mountains and Meadows exhibition at Meadow Vista in California.
Carel is also exhibiting at present in a traveling exhibition entitled ''Endangered Species Media Project", sponsored by Transco Energy Company, opening December 8th in Houston, Texas and which will go on to visit many major cities in the eastern states.
A successful muralist and commercial artist, Carel is presently working 011 a series of illustrations of endangered species.
The Kakapo project referred to earlier is the conservation effort currently underway by the New Zealand Department of Conservation based in Wellington. The person responsible for generating such interest here in Salt Lake is Rebecca Dennett, who will be taking the $1, 700 cheque to Ralph Powlesland, head of the project. Rebecca plans to spend time on predator-free Little Barrier Island observing the transplanted population established there.
The extraordinary Kakapo has an estimated world population of no more than 60 and is teetering 011 the very edge of extinction.
Despite careful monitoring and a massive effort by the New Zealand Department of Conservation, the bird's naturally slow and complex reproductive behaviour, together with the depradations of introduced predators encroaching throughout...