Beyond the Last Glance
There is something about watching a wild animal move away from you that I find unexpectedly poignant. Perhaps it is because, as an observer, I am always aware that the encounter is temporary. I may have been sitting quietly for hours, watching the herd move around me, and then suddenly one animal turns and begins to walk away. There is an almost instinctive feeling that it might disappear forever. But of course, that is my story — not theirs. For the zebra, there is no sense of departure. Nothing has ended. It is simply moving on. It may be going towards water, back towards the herd, towards food, towards shelter. It may be responding to something I cannot see or hear. Whatever the reason, its life continues beyond the point at which I can see it. That distinction stayed with me when I made this drawing. I deliberately allowed much of the animal to disappear into the white space. There is enough of the body for us to understand that it is moving away, but there is no landscape to...