All posts by Karim Zanaty

A lot of galleries took part to celebrate art with artist coming from Germany and Luxembourg. Like last year, I’ve spent my time being in the exhibition of the Kulturwerkstatt Trier to talk about my artwork and get in contact with people.

We organized some special activities and other things to celebrate this special event.

40 for 20

40 pieces for 20€ each. Great art for small prices. This was the motto of a wall at which we hang 40 20×20 cm MDF boards. Every board was turned into a unique artwork to buy for 20€.

Here are my contributions:

Unfortunately, I do not have a finished image of the last one

Art talks

At 7, 8, and 9 pm, Nelly Stockburger gathered all interested people and gave the present artists a chance to talk about their art, their motivation and their view on the Kulturwerkstatt.

As always, this is a good opportunity to discuss the techniques and motivations in more depth and to contact the local artists.

Make your own art

Throughout the evening, all visitors had the chance to create their own art and take a photograph of themselves with the end result back home. Gabbro Kokkot labels herself as a photo-poet with a focus on daily-life poesy.

Overall, it was a successful evening with valuable insights and feedback and the visitors highly appreciated these event! 🙂

I am lucky and really proud to say that my Pangolin raised £320 to support wildlife conservation projects all over the world! I am happy that it found a new home.

And I am trying to be back next year with a new drawing or painting!

If you would like to support wildlife conservation for a lower price – my signed art prints of that painting just dropped! 50% of all proceeds going towards ExplorersAgainstExtinction.

When we arrived around 6.30 pm the gallery was already filled with a few people. I was very nervous about that evening as this was my first time attending such an event. But, Robert welcomed us immediately and so sincere which created a friendly and calming atmosphere right from the beginningand. We grabbed ourselves some drinks as dived right into the pieces.

The Sketch for Survival pieces started with the “Juniors” – it is fairly hard to remember how my pieces were at the age of 8 or 15 but I was blown away by them! The different techniques and the understanding of light and shadow were above my expectations. We were very happy to see some of the young artists there, accompanied by their proud parents. Also the hosts took their time to speak to and support them which was lovely to see.

After the selected juniors it was time for the other “sketches” for survival. And honestly… as the junior artworks – these are no sketches at all. Lots of thought, time, work, frustration, and joy created every single piece visible in this exhibition. Techniques and media varied a lot and especially unknown species and unusual techniques caught my attention. The last pieces of the exhibition were created by selected wildlife conservation artists throughout the EAE-Supporters-List with a range from abstract to hyperrealistic paintings – each of them unique and special in their own way. These are some cherries on top and who would not like to have such an original hanging in their apartment?!

Throughout the evening, we exchanged with a bunch of artists as like the room was filled with them. We had a lovely chat with Holly Emerson, learned new techniques (and why exhibitions should also have a dark-room-switch) from Wyland Tondelier, and how wildlife art might win against against portraits from Claire Hughes. Just to name a few.

All pieces can be found here! The auction is open until the 17^th of November 2024.

I made incredible and valuable new connections that evening. I can only thank ExplorersAgainstExtinction for organizing such an event and the competition in general!

And I will be back next year! At least I try to 🙂

I  arrived at Bush House in London early on Saturday, the 28th of September, just after 9:00 a.m. The official registration wasn’t until 10, but I wanted to get a head start and finish hanging my artwork before the doors officially opened.

Once I had my artwork up and finished registering, I prepared my label to let everybody know that I am Karimoloephysis, which is a fun little detail.

Besides all the engaging talks and the amazing stalls, I enjoyed the paleoart workshops the most. The open “show and tell” was a great opportunity to learn about about Zid and Zniw and paleostream vol. 3 by Joschua Knüppe. Plus, the talk on bad paleoart held by Gemma Hazeborg, Marc Vincent, and Natee Himmapaan had everyone laughing while also delivering some fascinating insights on “old” and very recent bad and not so bad paleoart.

Perhaps the most exciting thing for me was how John Conway gathered a room full of eager artists for a (dinosaur) drawing session. Using skeletal reconstructions as references, we experimented with new art mediums and were challenged in creating some “bad” paleoart, focusing on everything we wouldn’t want to see in modern reconstructions. The workshop ran throughout the entire convention and was always quite busy.

It was a space where creativity thrived and experienced artists and newcomers came together.

Though this was my first TetZooCon (and the last in that form), it certainly won’t be my last convention of that kind. I’m already looking forward to 2025 for the very first DinoCon!

Along with 99 other amazing artists, I am honored to have my artwork displayed publicly in London and Edinburgh. I hope this piece will find a new home and help raise funds to combat extinction.

What makes this artwork so special to me is that it is the largest of its kind I have created so far. The title, “We Saw It Coming,” is meaningful. If you look closely, you can see what this pangolin saw last. Like many other incredible artworks, this piece serves as a wake-up call to protect endangered species.