Chimpanzee: He loves me, he loves me not

Chimpanzee: HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT is an allegory that juxtaposes two ideas.  The first is that Chimpanzees are great game players. So she sits in the setting sun and plays the age old french love game.  There is a certain innocence and whimsy in this image that on the surface plays to our deep longing to love and to be loved. 

The deeper and suffice to say, darker idea is that this whimsical game becomes a metaphor for death.  The chimpanzee, being an intelligent sentient being is forced, against their will, to choose their own demise.   Will it be by chainsaw, clearcutting their forest home until there is nothing left?  Or will it be by bullet, delivered by a similar intelligent sentient being, only devoid of the power to think beyond his immediate need, not realizing that his own life blood is directly connected to the survival of the natural world and species around him.   

We say that we are more intellectually evolved than our lesser animal relatives, and yet our actions illustrate that we are in many ways nothing more than a simple, primitive animal. 

He loves me, he love me not. It’s catch 22 for the chimpanzee.

Artist: Rob Whitehair

Digital mixed media: Pencil on Procreate, Photoshop, Acrylic