"Perishing In The Lap Of Luxury" by Aleta 2017 Poster

Original painting by Aleta, titled "Perishing In The Lap Of Luxury" and printed 18" x 24.75". This painting began as a sketch made after the artist had a fever and saw such a scene. In her vision, the hourglass was full of people in the top half, running about their busy lives, consuming, shopping, working, warring, all while pumping out pollution and laying waste to the land. The time was nearly run out, and the bottom half of the hour glass was full of waste and death. Bleak. While outside the containment of the hourglass was a paradise all nestled in the lap of the green goddess - our home, hence the Lap of Luxury. The message was humanity's time was running out, and with it our paradise. The artist set about gathering materials for a large multimedia sculpture. Too many moves made it difficult to keep a large scale project viable, and it languished for years. Fall 2016, in a bid to make the rent the artist consented to sell the materials, and immediately began painting this image. The image features a beautiful tree-of-life Earth goddess, abundantly flowing with water, arms as limbs outstretched and covered with fruits, an hourglass rests in her lap and tells us the hour is late, around and on her are thirty-four animals of the now 41,415 plant and animal species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, of which 16,306 are threatened with extinction. An overpopulated and growing endangered species list and now a new US president and cabinet opposed to protecting the environment make this message more dire than ever. Get informed and help. Visit iucn.org for more info on threatened species and what is being done. Find out what you can do. IF YOU WORK FOR A CONSERVATION ORG and would like to discuss obtaining this image, please email aleta at aletasdream dot com.