5th Annual World Lemur Festival Art Gallery
Lemurs need our help, and artists around the world have taken action to put a spotlight on Madagascar’s endangered primates.
Visual arts convey powerful messages and instill a sense of awe in ways that numbers and statistics alone cannot.
Art is one of the core principles of LCF’s mission statement, and each year we invite artists to participate in the World Lemur Festival Juried Art Exhibition to truly inspire, raise awareness, and take action to protect lemurs and their fragile habitats.
“…dedicated to the preservation and conservation of the primates of Madagascar through managed breeding, scientific research, education, and art.”
Congratulations to the winners of the 5th Annual World Lemur Festival Art Contest!
The Lemur Conservation Foundation is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2022 World Lemur Festival Juried Art Exhibition!
Our panel of judges reviewed each entry with close attention and an insightful eye, deliberating until a consensus was reached. This art exhibit encourages artists and the public to examine more closely these extraordinary animals and think critically about their uncertain future.
“Lemurs offer endless opportunities for artistic expression. The variety in form, color, and size, in addition to their imperiled status, beg to be rendered into art.” Jean Blackburn, LCF Art Committee Member
The diverse artistic styles, unique mediums, and passion infused into each piece truly accomplished our goal to shine a light on lemurs and lemur conservation.
First Place Winner
The Lemur Conservation Foundation’s 2022 Artist of the Year, and winner of the $300 grand prize, is Evi Art from Rehovot, Israel.
Evi’s piece, “Scarcity,” is charcoal, graphite and colored pencils on recycled paper.
Evi explains the inspiration and meaning of her striking creation:
“The reference for this drawing of the critically endangered Verreaux’s sifaka was photographed during behavioral research in the Kirindy Mitea National Park. The one baobab fruit in this image, taken during the dry season, reflects the scarcity the sifaka and many other lemur species are facing while their habitat suffers from severe deforestation and a decade-long drought courtesy of climate change.
Charcoal is used in this drawing to highlight the threat to the forests of southwestern Madagascar caused by charcoal production as a cooking fuel. While the baobab trees, not used for that purpose, are still giving food and shelter for the lemurs in these fragmented forests, it won’t last long against the urgent threat to this highly diverse ecosystem.”
Second Place Winner
Second Place honors and the $150 Prize go to “Critical Times,” a digital painting created by Mr. Lemur from Bourgogne, France. A lemur lover and conservationist, Mr. Lemur said his work spotlights the northern sportive lemur species, which is among the most threatened of all lemur species and considered Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“They are doomed to disappear,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Congratulations to the winners of the 5th Annual World Lemur Festival Art Contest!
The Lemur Conservation Foundation (LCF) is thrilled to announce the winners of the 2022 World Lemur Festival Juried Art Exhibition!
Our panel of judges reviewed each entry with close attention and an insightful eye, deliberating until a consensus was reached. This art exhibit encourages artists and the public to examine more closely these extraordinary animals and think critically about their uncertain future.
Lemurs offer endless opportunities for artistic expression. The variety in form, color, and size, in addition to their imperiled status, beg to be rendered into art.” Jean Blackburn, LCF Art Committee Member
The diverse artistic styles, unique mediums, and passion infused into each piece truly accomplished our goal to shine a light on lemurs and lemur conservation.
First Place Winner
The Lemur Conservation Foundation’s 2022 Artist of the Year, and winner of the $300 grand prize, is Evi Art from Rehovot, Israel.
Evi’s piece, “Scarcity,” is charcoal, graphite and colored pencils on recycled paper.
Evi explains the inspiration and meaning of her striking creation:
“The reference for this drawing of the critically endangered Verreaux’s sifaka was photographed during behavioral research in the Kirindy Mitea National Park. The one baobab fruit in this image, taken during the dry season, reflects the scarcity the sifaka and many other lemur species are facing while their habitat suffers from severe deforestation and a decade-long drought courtesy of climate change.
Charcoal is used in this drawing to highlight the threat to the forests of southwestern Madagascar caused by charcoal production as a cooking fuel. While the baobab trees, not used for that purpose, are still giving food and shelter for the lemurs in these fragmented forests, it won’t last long against the urgent threat to this highly diverse ecosystem.”
Second Place Winner
Second Place honors and the $150 Prize go to “Critical Times,” a digital painting created by Mr. Lemur from Bourgogne, France. A lemur lover and conservationist, Mr. Lemur said his work spotlights the northern sportive lemur species, which is among the most threatened of all lemur species and considered Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“They are doomed to disappear,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Community Favorite!
We asked you to select a Community Favorite and the results are in! Congratulations to Samantha L., a student from Stuart, FL, whose colored pencil creation, “Hope for Conservation,” wowed the crowd and received 241 votes.
Thank you to all artists who participated in the 2022 Juried Art Exhibition.
Community Favorite!
We asked you to select a Community Favorite and the results are in! Congratulations to Samantha L., a student from Stuart, FL, whose colored pencil creation, “Hope for Conservation,” wowed the crowd and received 241 votes.
Thank you to all artists who participated in the 2022 Juried Art Exhibition.
We are proud to digitally showcase the following entries during our 5th annual Juried Art Exhibition.
Please enjoy these lemur-themed pieces created by artists around the globe. Thank you to all the participants who submitted art; together we can protect the primates of Madagascar.
October 27, 2022 – 5:00pm ET: Voting has ended for our Community Favorite. Any additional votes will not be counted. Thank you for supporting Lemurs and artists!
Meet the Judges
Penelope Bodry-Sanders
Penelope founded LCF in 1996 and served as its executive director until 2010. In 1998, Penelope retired from New York’s American Museum of Natural History after serving over 18 years in a number of capacities, but primarily as education coordinator for the museum’s international education travel program. She continues her AMNH affiliation as a field associate in the Division of Anthropology.
Penelope’s own path to conservation was anything but conventional: she was a Dominican nun and an actress/singer on and off Broadway before she founded LCF. Today she makes paintings that celebrate animals undervalued or loathed, mostly hyenas, lemurs, and invertebrates. Penelope is dedicated to the idea that art cannot change the world but that it can most certainly change the way we think, interpret, and feel about it.
Mark Ormond
Mark’s primary interest and expertise is in contemporary art. With over 25 years of experience in the art world, he has organized dozens of museum exhibitions – and scheduled, coordinated, designed and installed over one hundred others. After completing graduate and undergraduate programs in art history at George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively, he held museum positions in the areas of education, curatorial, collections management and administration. He is also a graduate of U.C. Berkeley’s Museum Management Institute.
During his ten-year association with the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, he was appointed Senior Curator & Deputy Director for Collections and Programs. While in Miami, he became the first Curator and then was appointed Director of the Center for the Fine Arts (now the Miami Art Museum). He has also held positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. As an independent curator, author, lecturer and consultant since 1999, Mark remains engaged in a broad range of contemporary art projects.
George Cwirko-Godycki
George began teaching at Ringling College of Art and Design in 2017 as an adjunct instructor. In addition to his teaching role, George is a freelance illustrator with a focus on whimsical line work for print and online publications. His work with students, art projects, and travels are frequently featured on his Instagram account, @georgedrawing, which enjoys an active following of more than 120,000 people around the world. George has completed a solo gallery show, published four books of illustrations and is under contract to write a drawing instruction book.
Prior to Ringling College, George was a faculty member at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco for six years, where he taught costume drawing, digital painting, and fashion illustration, among other courses. George earned his B.F.A. in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.
Jean Blackburn
Jean was born and grew up on Anna Maria Island, Florida. She received a BA Degree from the University of Florida, an AS degree in Biological Parks Technology from State College of FL, Gainesville and an MFA from the University of Oregon where she was awarded a two year graduate teaching fellowship. She taught fine arts at State College of Florida, Manatee, Ringling College of Art and Design and New College of Florida. She has completed a masters workshop at the Canadian School of Non-toxic Printmaking in Alberta and at The Edinburgh Institute of Printmaking in Scotland.
She was certified by the University of Florida as a Master Gardener and Master Naturalist and served on governing boards of Sarasota’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Oversight Council, Sea to Shore Alliance and The Friends of Myakka River State Park. Her early adult years were spent sailing and painting throughout the Caribbean, Bahamas and Central America. A small farm in Old Myakka and a cottage on Longboat Key is where she now gardens, paints and lives with her family.