Iguana
This depiction of Cayman’s indigenous Blue Iguana is typical of the work of artist duo Olly and Suzi — incorporating an expressionistic silhouette of the eponymous reptile and the physical trace of the animal’s movements across the paper — the marks of which can be seen imprinted on the paper’s surface. The work was created at a time of growing ecological awareness in the Cayman Islands that coincided with the founding of the National Trust in the late 1980s and establishment of the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic park in 1994, which features a highly successful captive Iguana breeding program.
About the Artist
Olly & Suzi
b. 1969
Olly Williams and Suzi Winstanley are two British artists who specialise in the collaborative painting of wildlife, working directly within the environments that they depict and often soliciting “assistance” from their subjects in the form of pawprints or bite-marks. The pair were NGCI Artists-in-Residence in 1998 when they worked both on land, inside the mangrove swamp, and underwater at Stingray City. Their work has been exhibited at NGCI in the exhibitions Tortugas (1998), All Access (2015), and Tropical Visions (2019).
