Judy Hinchliffe, co-founder of RAA, rediscovered her lost connection with nature and love of art when visiting Bali, in 2006. Years later, in 2019, she organised the first ‘Save the Rainforest’ exhibition. Judy says “I wanted to do something with my art that was useful, as opposed to self-indulgent.” The exhibition featured a palm oil ‘packet challenge’, a rainforest quiz – and Judy dressed as a parrot. Judy then organised the second exhibition, which began in August 2019 and has been developing and expanding ever since.
As Sir David Attenborough has said, people will only take care of something if they have an affection for it, an appreciation of it. Rainforest Appreciation Artists use imagery to inspire greater appreciation of nature and thus to encourage people to protect the rainforest and its inhabitants. Judy says, “I feel as though I am doing something useful, and this makes me happy.”
Describing how the first ‘Save the Rainforest’ exhibition came about, Judy says that she had been searching, for quite some time, for a useful way to use her passion for art.
“I had organised a series of workshops, involving painting, meditation and dancing. During one of these, we painted parrots. I chose parrots because of their bright, vibrant colours – and because it is relatively easy to paint a recognisable parrot. Later, whilst doing some research on the internet, I came across a TEDx talk, in which Peggy Okie described how she had created an exhibition of her paintings of whales – fifty individual portraits to represent the fifty whales that the Japanese Government had just announced their intention to kill.
“Next, on the right of my screen, there was a link to another TEDx talk, We are all connected with nature: Nixiwaka Yawanawa at TEDxHackney – Bing video
“I watched the video and listened to Amazon Indian Artist Nixiwaka Yawanawá speaking about the effect of deforestation on the tribal people who live in the rainforest. I was spellbound. When the video had ended, I said, “OK: parrots” – and with that, my idea for an exhibition of paintings of parrots was born.
“My plan was to present information about rainforests and use colourful paintings of parrots to attract people, to engage their interest and to increase awareness of the importance of saving the rainforest.
“I organised a parrot-painting workshop, which was attended by seventeen members of Huddersfield Art Society. They all painted parrots. I also had a parrot-painting birthday party. The result was that, when the first ‘Save the Rainforest’ exhibition went up in April 2019, it included forty-five paintings of parrots.
“The exhibition ran for two weeks. After it finished, I wanted to do another one. The second ‘Save the Rainforest’ exhibition opened in August 2019 and has been running ever since.”