Kathleen Amaru
kathleenamaru@yahoo.com
 

This is a proposed illustration for "A Shot in the Ark: Exotic Animals Flourish on Ranches in Texas, Where People Pay a Lot of Money to Shoot Them," which appeared as an article in the New Yorker (March 5, 2001).

The choice of the male lion is intended to symbolize the dignity and majesty of African wildlife. The power of the lion is also intended to contrast and to be poignant in its entrapment by the surrounding barbed wire. The barbed wire is in the shape of Texas, as a metaphor for the fact that it is occurring in Texas.

The border design features a left-right polarity between American and African game animals, with guns pointed in both directions to symbolize the hunt. The red and black flat pattern design was chosen to heighten the drama.

The Illustration employed the artist's pen and ink drawings, which were imported into Photoshop.