A new art show in Rapid City is drawing attention to conservation. The Minnesota based artist uses pens and markers to show unlikely relationships between animals in the wild.
There are seven large images made up of small, hand drawn details hanging in the Garage building. Each features two animals that coexist in the wild and have a mutually beneficial relationship. Sarah Nelson is the artist. Her subjects are relationships people might find surprising like….
“The crocodile and Egyptian Plover. The Egyptian Plover is a small bird that will step into the mouth of a crocodile and it just looks like this death trap. But in reality it’s really good for both species.”
Nelson has a passion for conservation and environmental sustainability. Each piece is accompanied by a short bio explaining the animals relationships-like Sea Anemone and Clown Fish. Nelson says the fish cleans itself on the anemone and also move water around that helps the anemone get nutrients and oxygen.
“One of my hopes is to always help educate people through my work by both exposing really just weird and cool things that exist naturally in nature that people might not know about. But also to help people learn a little bit more about how to care about the planet as well.”
Her work has been used to promote a National Geographic television show, ‘The Story of Us’. The Plymouth Minnesota based artist says mankind is a part of the natural ecosystem and shares resources with everything else.
“I feel like mankind is often, especially recently, really divisive and having trouble getting along. So I was like man if these different species can actually work together to better their environments, maybe we can start to learn from that.”
Nelson says she hopes that getting people interested in nature will help urge people to conserve the planet’s resources.