’Makavuzi’ by David Filer ~ The World’s First Life-Sized Pencil Drawing of an African Elephant.

From day one of this drawing, an incredible elephant named Makavuzi and I began to interact. There are no other words for what happened - it was a complete and coherent relationship that formed whereby energy constantly ebbed and flowed between us. There was not one day where I didn’t feel his presence in the room with me. If I wasn’t working on him, I wanted to be. Nothing gets you out of bed at 4 am like a rendezvous with an elephant in your studio. This is more than a moving exhibition. I have never felt more intertwined with a drawing before; when you look at him you see a part of me. I know every groove, every hair, every inflection on his skin and I can tell you exactly what Mak and I were discussing when I drew each one of them. You can see an elephant in a book, you can watch them on the screen and you can easily understand that they are ‘big.’ Until you stand in front of one however, until you actually see with your own eyes just HOW big they are and feel just HOW magnificen