Sally Matthews
Dawn Yoxall
23rd May - 29th September 2019
Image by Richard Harris
I make and draw animals as I see them – no myth, no fairytale – animals that share the earth.
Wolves and Deer have always been intertwined – predator and prey. Wolves have been seen as a threat to humans and their livestock for centuries and so demonized and persecuted. Are wolves the more frightening or is our ruthless persecution of them and our inability and unwillingness to live alongside them what we should be more frightened of.
Whereas deer have been ‘sport’ and food so have been valued and conserved. The last wolf in England was supposedly killed in Cumbria, but Grizedale holds the precious and only remaining herd of indigenous red deer in England. We are now the wolf - keeping the deer population at a healthy level within the Forest.
We have placed ourselves as predator – nothing to be frightened of but ourselves.