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“W
hen you can harmonize everything beyond the edge of the canvas, that’s when real magic happens,” John Banovich exclaimed. Banovich transforms square footage of cloth into unsurpassed beauty that catapulted him into the Pantheon of the world’s most admired and successful wildlife artists. Canvas is also a launching platform to actualize his greatest visions: conserving the world’s animals, their habitats and the humans who interact with both. “The paintings must serve a bigger purpose,” Banovich elaborated, “especially when you have a lot of space on which to express many thoughts.” For example, his lifesized elephant painting Once Upon A Time drew global attention to ivory poaching.
Beyond the Edge of the Canvas The “Why” of John Banovich’s Art SAFARI NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
Not being limited or defined by the canvas has become an existential battle for Banovich. To express himself in ways that “feel good,” his art incorporates aspects drawn from a thousand choices: the line, color, brush stroke angle, paint depth, all guiding the competition for the viewer’s attention. But the lions, tigers and bears, the acacias, flamingos and elephants hibernating in his pigment tubes are liberated for a transcendent purpose — to escape the confines of the canvas and inspire and entice audiences to participate in his vision and quest. “I love that challenge when you create beyond the edge of the canvas, when you nail it,” Banovich enthused.
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Now, more important, is revealing the nuances of the animals’ world; the challenges they face, what might occur in the instant after the moment portrayed on the canvas. Banovich’s forthcoming painting, Enthronement of a King, expected to be completed this spring, illustrates with clarity his compulsion to tell a narrative in a new way. The eight-foot by eight-foot canvas has twelve panels, each chronicling and celebrating a year in the life of a male lion. The first panels show wet lion cubs, a profound moment in their lives because massive challenges will confront them— will they be killed by a competing male lion, bitten by a snake, killed by a buffalo? Which must be beaten to survive? Subsequent panels show the lions as they ar r ive at what John calls their “golden moment” when they lead the pride and sire their young. But this stage is evanescent, lasting a year or two if they are lucky. The twelfth panel tears at the observer’s heart, for it shows the lion in the last hours of its life, its skin stretched over its skeleton like plastic wrap. The depiction will be unapologetically accurate — the consequence of Banovich watching an aged male lion die. Only by ruthless authenticity can Banovich best honor the animal. All animals have majesty and noble bear-
ing, Banovich asserts, but the lion is most inspiring. “If Africa loses its lions, it loses more than a great cat—it loses its soul.” On initial viewing, the painting presents the majesty of the King of the Beasts in stages of life, from cute infancy through grandeur to its soulchurning inevitable departure. But upon deeper reflection, the painting’s message expresses so much more and illustrates Banovich’s mission beyond the canvas. Thrust at the viewer like a Masai spear is the harsh and whimsical lethality and unalloyed brutality of Nature. Banovich attacks the pernicious “Bambification” of wildlife with an unfiltered message that screams, “We live in a rough neighborhood! We need protection! Will you help us?” The “Why” of John Banovich
“Through my artwork,” says Banovich, “I hope to move, reveal and inspire people to seek a deeper understanding of the world around us and bring together groups of individuals to unite on a common ground. Our natural world is severely threatened and with this increased pressure, a new paradigm must emerge...artists, conservationists, sportsmen and environmentalists must come together in areas of overlapping interests." continued on page 174
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“I am constantly living on the precipice,” Banovich says. His now-stratospheric stature is fragile; contingent upon consistently stunning output. “People will come to me based on what I did yesterday, but they won’t stay unless what I do today is fabulous.” Early in his career, he had to master the craft, but once that is figured out, the challenges go up exponentially. The dramatic changes in the African landscape make it more difficult to tell a thought-provoking narrative. How can he say something that hasn’t been said before? He’s painted a hundred elephants, painted about the same number of lions inspired by the estimated five thousand he’s seen. Banovich recently completed his one thousandth painting! His work has g reater authenticity now because he’s painted so many animals so many times. Banovich can add depth and direction to the canvas by using more paint; he is subtler in creating points of emphasis. He knows the message in an animal’s shifting weight; the elephant’s message by the position of its trunk or the harmony of movement of the ears and trunk. Greater efficiency and conciseness challenge him to distill more meaning from his work. Merely crafting a beautiful painting, in his words, “won’t make the cut.”
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The Journey to Beyond the Edge
At age seven Banovich painted his first oil painting. He was a personal trainer in his early twenties when the idea that he could make a living as a painter gained traction. His next career endeavor, to build a real estate empire, led to a high-risk gambit that ultimately mandated he become a wildlife artist. Although he had not traveled to Africa, Banovich was painting many African subjects. Desiring to visit Africa, Banovich sold his painting The Kill, which he describes as “huge,” to finance the trip. To create a situation that would force him to test his artistic longevity, Banovich sold his last rental property and calculated that he had enough money to survive for six months. He committed that time to see if this “art thing” would be fruitful. “I burned my boats,” he told me. “I had nothing to fall back on.” The subsequent sale of a few paintings brought immutability to his heretofore tentativeness to commit to art as a profession. One of Banovich’s staff confided that he “is like a machine” with discipline that is off the charts. “I force myself to keep grinding away,” says Banovich. “When I’m really cranking, that level of intensity, I am yielding to what I must say through the paint.” Unrelentingly pushed by his heart and brain, inspiring music helps him fight physical and mental exhaustion, not always successfully.
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he pursue it? Because the knowledge and data give him verisimilitude and unsurpassed credibility, inspiration and purpose that, when woven into a harmonious tapestry, advance his mission beyond the canvas. That encyclopedic mastery of data is yet a Banovich paradox, for it
If art can instill awe, educate and inspire, then it follows that creating effective conservation organizations is a form of art. In 2007, Banovich founded the Banovich Wildscapes Foundation, a nonprofit (501c3) organization. Under its umbrella, money generated through artwork sales
than cultivating an appreciation for or selling his art, Banovich seeks to educate audiences to the point where, like iron filing drawn to a magnet, the decision to engage with his cause can be made. Banovich’s “why” drives him unceasingly because he wants to save the animals, their habitat and to enrich the populations that interact with them. He sees the big picture. He understands conservation and land masses. He also understands the math of human population growth and thinks in terms of the protein billions will need to survive. Questions plague him, such as will the hopeful rise out of poverty of these billions through economic development destroy the wildlife? Can wildlife survive coexisting with humans? Banovich believes a fighting chance exists to save the animals and their land if they are managed as a natural resource.
Banovich has made fifty trips to Africa. He obsessively seeks out information and knowledge, variables that cost him a fortune in time and money and exact physical and mental prices. On a recent brief trip to Africa, he made exhaustion-inducing twelve aircraft flights, about one every two days, to study wildlife. Banovich certainly gives luminous smiles when he is photog raphed near elephants while almost fully submerged in a river or having a lion cub on his back chewing a camera strap, but the smiles mask a focused intensity of purpose. The obsessive pursuit of knowledge and data is not needed for him to perfect his art. Banovich knows how to paint leopards and lions and wildebeest and sunsets. So why does
is a source of anguish and compulsion. Information and wisdom lead to moral obligation and duty. Tormenting him like rubbing sandpaper on a sunburn are questions such as, “Am I doing enough with my knowledge?
is channeled to support promoting habitat protection, science-based wildlife management and sustainable tourism. The Foundation supports twelve projects in seven countries. Its signature mission is engaging in niches that its limited resources can effectively impact. The Foundation develops initiatives that work in partnership with existing organizations to achieve many goals, such as promoting scientific research and conservation education, facilitating habitat protection of large conservation landscapes and building long-term community economic programs. The Foundation’s partnerships with several world-wide organizations has, laudably, brought together the non-hunting conservation community and the sportsmen-conservationists.
The Banovich Wildscapes Foundation
“I star ted the Banovich Wildscapes Foundation as a way to give something back to the world that has given so much to me,” says Banovich. “The name ‘Wildscapes’ refers to large, abundant landscapes…wild, balanced and intact ecosystems. There is nothing more important to future generations than wildlife and wild lands, special places that lift our minds, replenish our spirits and renew our passion for living."
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Banovich also understands urgency. On the “Take Action Now” link on his Wildscapes Foundation website, he writes: “The human and animal conflict is raging, and is now escalating to the point where the decisions we make today will seal the fate of wildlife for generations to come.”
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To Banovich, the pigments are necessary but insufficient to attain the larger purposes of his art, which he sees as transmission wires to fund his own programs and inspire others to work with him. Focusing just on Banovich’s art, ironically, may cause a failure to grasp his greater mission. More
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The Banovich Wildlife Foundation operates at a granular level. Its work is practical, theoretical and personal. Some of the programs supported by the Foundation include a Siberian tiger conservation program in the Russian Far East, a tiger program in India, a brown bear initiative in North America and Lion PRIDE (Protection, Research, Implementation, Development and Education) conser vation prog rams such as Laikipia Predator Project, Mara Lion Project and the Chem Chem Lion Project. Protection efforts address managing large areas of suitable habitat and conserving those protected areas that are large enough for wide-ranging wildlife. Research focuses on gaining insights into the dynamics between the needs of wildlife and the growing human populations to influence the policies of private organizations as well as gover nment agencies. Implementation refers to policy realization and financial transactions. Revenue generated by hunting and tourism has the greatest impact when equitably distributed to communities that live with the wildlife and that are most influential in either supporting or replacing wildlife, legally or illegally. Development policies affecting rural communities are structured to directly protect wildlife. Finally, the Education component is directed to demonstrate how wildlife can be an economic asset to rural communities rather than be a liability. Predators are central to conservation in ecological terms, and large predators affect entire ecosystems. The Lion PRIDE initiative, thus, is dedicated to conserving lions by using scientific research to preserve large landscapes while simultaneously integrating its work to directly enhance rural community development. To raise funds for his Foundation, Banovich travels extensively to give presentations such as the event recently sponsored by media producers Amy and Chris Dorsey at Brays Island Plantation in South Carolina. Exhibits further disseminate John’s vision and work. Beg inning in Januar y 2019, the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno will host an exclusive one-man exhibition titled “King of Beasts: A Study of Afr ican Lions by John
Banovich.” The exhibit is the first that focuses solely on his work on African lions. Educational tours and lectures will complement the Banovich exhibit. Net Effects
Banovich is driven by what he calls “net effects,” which are projects that “move the needle.” He is aware that his art is highly valued and treasured by astute collectors and museums around the world — a reality for which he is humbly g rateful. The value of his ar t, however, is measured by the net effects; not by how much money he raises, but by consequences — what is actually accomplished. The Metaphoric Pillows
Everything Banovich does may be interpreted metaphorically for his explosive need to create and advance beyond the canvas. His elegant leather pillows represent such an example. He visited a shop in Wyoming and saw pillows boasting Western wildlife themes featuring elk, bear, deer, perhaps other animals also. He found them alluring but viewed the pillows as an oppor tunity to exhibit Afr ican wildlife. John contacted the manufacturer and now he’s in the pillow business and also selling wine bottle stoppers and drink coasters. Even resting on a couch, one can now protect lions and rhinos. Dur ing my latest conversation with him, Banovich told me, “You can read about me, but you can’t understand me.” Those words challenged me. I illuminated John’s drive to transcend the boundaries of his canvases using his words as much as was practical. I have endeavored to present new insights into this complex man, not because John Banovich wants or even cares about more insight into him, but rather because he knows down to his bones that insights into his passion and grit and work ethic can motivate others to engage virtuously to save the animals, their land and the people who are destined to live with them. His art is beautiful, of course, but Banovich knows the actions that can save the animals take place only beyond the edge of the canvas. .