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Sculptor Jill Guillemin raised a few eyebrows when she placed a lifelike, full-size cheetah in the rockery in her garden in Snells Beach recently.
“All the neighbours were going, ‘whoa’,” she says.
The cheetah, made from fabric surrounding a wire frame, is currently being exhibited at the Emma Jean Gallery, in Silverdale Village, as part of an exhibition titled Creatures.
Jill says she was inspired to create the animal following a visit to an African game park. There she spotted a cheetah lying in the shade of a solitary tree in a vast savannah.
“As we inched forward in the big truck to get a better view of this magnificent animal, the cheetah sprang to its feet, looked back for a moment and walked away – capturing my heart,” Jill says.
Later, Jill learned the animals were threatened with extinction in the wild.
Although illegal, it is estimated about three-quarters of all cheetah cubs are being smuggled out of
Africa to the United Arab Emirates. There they are considered status symbols for wealthy owners, who drive around with them in flashy cars.
Jill has named her cheetah Msaada, which means ‘help’ in Swahili, and she hopes exhibiting her sculpture will draw attention to the plight of the animals.
It took nine weeks to create Msaada, which required extensive online research into the animals’ physical dimensions and a visit to Wellington Zoo to get a good view of the animals close up.
Jill has been sculpting for 25 years, mostly using ceramics. She switched to working with wire and fabric when she found she could not accommodate a kiln at her new home in Snells Beach.
Other artists featured in the Creatures exhibition are Sam RB, Kristin Ivill, Susannah Law and Marilyn Wheeler. The exhibition runs until January 25.
