She listened carefully to the key messages of the Campaign Against Tiger Trafficking and saw the images released with the press kit, and conducted research of her own, speaking with tiger researchers as far afield as Russia, then began a series of paintings to express and share her emotional journey through the sordid business of tiger trafficking.

Her first set of paintings was inspired from a gruesome photo from WildAid Thailand of a tiger cut in half to be smuggled to traditional Asian medicine markets, and it is appropriately called “Did I die in vain”? The series explores traditional Asian medicine, smuggling, tiger farming, poaching, the concept of wilderness, and organized crime.

This series is sobering, and emotionally exhausting but ends with a message of hope rendered from a photograph taken by Wildlife Conservation Society biologist John Goodrich of tigress that had been rescued from a snare in the woods of the Russian Far East. Francesca was inspired by an extraordinary picture of this spirited animal literally ‘exploding’ to freedom from the back of a Land Rover and aptly titled it ‘release’.

See more from this series at www.francescaowens.com