Edinburgh wildlife artist Carol Barrett helps raise money for worldwide animal conservation

‘Sketch for Survival’ online exhibition will return to Edinburgh in 2023

Work by Edinburgh-based professional wildlife artist Carol Barrett is being auctioned as part of an online exhibition to raise money for animal conservation. She has donated a painting of elephants to Explorers Against Extinction's Sketch for Survival exhibition, which also features artwork from celebrities including explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and two pieces by Axel Scheffle, award-winning illustrator of The Gruffalo.

Some of the works from the exhibition were on display in Edinburgh, at the Dundas Street Gallery, for a few days in October and all of them are now on show at London’s Oxo Gallery until Sunday . But the entire exhibition is also online and bidding in the auction runs until Sunday around 6pm – each piece has its own time.

Explorers Against Extinction (EAE) partner with frontline projects around the world, working to recover key species and restore ecosystems. They work with many endangered species from forest to ocean, and also support reforestation and habitat protection projects.

Carol Barrett's painting of elephants is being auctioned to raise money for wildlife conservation.

The entire proceeds from this year's exhibition will support six conservation projects, including the field-based conservation of cheetah and wild dog in Zambia; keeping watch over the forest elephants of Dzanga-Sangha in the Central African Republic; safeguarding the snow leopards of Himachal Pradesh in India; and restoring forests for orangutans in Indonesian Borneo.

Carol Barrett said: “I have been involved with Sketch for Survival since almost the beginning, 2016, and am lucky to be one of their invited artists. The exhibition in the Dundas Street Gallery was the first time EAE had come to Scotland to showcase the annual exhibition in aid of conservation. It was received with great interest and admiration by the viewing public despite some dismal weather. And EAE have booked the Dundas Street Gallery for next year's Sketch for Survival Exhibition.”

Sketch for Survival is now in its sixth year. Sara White, one of the organisers, said as well as raising funds, the exhibition also helped to raise awareness of a whole range of issues. “When people walk into the exhibition and they understand that everything on the wall that they see is endangered in some way. That's incredibly powerful. It sparks debate about a range of issues from poaching and habitat loss to climate change.”