"Favorite tree"

The leopard (Panthera pardus) is the most secretive of the African big cats. A consummate climber, it hauls its kills into trees to keep them from scavengers.

The leopard is stretched along its branch — seemingly at ease, but its gaze is fixed on something beyond the frame. Below, in the savannah, a dozen gazelles graze unknowing. It is this silent tension that the painting seeks to render: the predator high above, the prey below, and between them nothing but a tree and distance. The watercolour concentrated on the coat — each rosette traced one by one on a ground of warm ochre fur.