Elephant Nature Park

No your eyes are not deceiving you. Elephants can paint! That’s official and as you read on you will discover a whole new world of Elephantine exhibitions, mammoth masters, brazen brush strokes and trunk re-touches. Pachyderm painters are all the rage these days and you now have the chance to proudly hang their fine pieces in your best room.

An art exhibition, glorifying the finer works of elephants, is being planned by Sangduen Chailert, better known as Lek to those fortunate enough to meet her. Small in stature but certainly not in spirit she is the founder of an elephant project in Mae Taman area, 50 km north of Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand. The park is just a few kilometres from where she was born so when she speaks it is with life-long knowledge, commitment and undisputed love of her native area. She has been around elephants for most of her life since her grandfather had a part share in an elephant trained for ‘tilling the mountainous ground that was her family home as a child.

"I was fascinated by them since ... well - since as long as I can remember" her eyes twinkle as she spoke "Such a magnificent animal, so huge yet so graceful, gentle and kind. They have a beautiful temperament when they are treated well"

And creative she certainly is, when a friend gave her a copy of videotape recorded from a TV programme the bells started ringing. It was a BBC programme featuring talented animals where Ruby, an Asian elephant at Arizona zoo was actually painting pictures. They had trained the elephant to paint thus helping finance the zoo by selling the pictures. With a waiting list of over 200 people it seemed an ideal way for the elephant to help themselves. Then on 23 May 1998 a group of Russian artists came along to the park to share their expertise in similar projects.

The park’s star attraction is Phet (diamond) who immediately took to the hobby. He is just five years of age and has been at the park nine months. He loves to dance to Northern Thai music when painting and favours the colour green and blue. Lek reasons that his colour choice reflects his love for nature. He favours bold cross-canvas strokes using various thickness of brush and his personal style is regarded as amongst the most professional of all elephant painters. His style is definitely of the non-objective non-figurative abstract model founded in the 1920’s. Little could those decadent Europeans have imagined that almost 80 years later their style would be embraced, some may say surpassed, by the world’s largest land mammal.

It seems certain that these paintings are soon to grace homes in Thailand and all over the world. Recent coverage by Thai-language newspapers and TV stations has created countrywide interest. Lek hopes that this concern will re-awaken Thai understanding and appreciation of the elephants – which were, until a few years ago, an inseparable component of Thai culture, mythology and folklore.

Who knows, perhaps in the future Phet’s paintings will be as sought after as those of the early abstract painters like Wassily Kandinsky. Could he be destined to become a celebrated animal equivalent of the great Leonard Di Vinchi? Such pure animal mastery of the canvas is rare if not unique. The fortunate owner of such elephant artistry is practically guaranteed a real taking point as guests admire the unusual painting style created by a two-ton artist with a six-foot nose. "Oh just a little elephant number I picked up in the East!" could well become a party icebreaker.

Exhibitions are to be planned later this month in Chiang Mai to display Phet and his companions finest art This display is believed to be the first of it’s kind in the kingdom. Re-known art critics have been invited to comment on the mammal masterpieces so the exhibition will be a day of fun as well as for serious buying. Lek also hopes that both international art and nature-lovers will hook up to the park’s Internet web-site at http://www.thaifocus.com/elephant where the painting will be on offer on-line.