PATTERSON, Matt, American, (New Hampshire, b. 1981): ''The Magnificent Madagascar Radiated Tortoise'', an original acrylic painting, amazing color and detail on vellum art board depicting the critically endangered Radiated Tortoise found in Southern Madagascar. Painted by the artist based on his 2019 fact gathering trip to Madagascar with The Turtle Survival Alliance. Framed in a rustic style white pine frame, 14.5'' x 18.5''. Your chance to acquire an original Patterson work, never before offered for sale at Auction. Patterson, an award winning wildlife artist, sculptor, and Author, has received The Roger Tory Peterson Wild American Art Award in both 2017 and 2018. A delightful and most enlightening artist bio and history may be found at http://www.mpattersonart.com/contact. In the artist's own words.. ''To give you some specific background on this painting, it is a critically endangered radiated tortoise found in Southern Madagascar. In 2019 I traveled to Madagascar with the Turtle Survival Alliance to help in field work surveying sites and current populations. These tortoises are heavily poached for the illegal pet trade and several large illegal shipments of them were confiscated. One seizure had over 10,000 tortoises, another was over 7,000. The Turtle Survival Alliance along with other organizations have a few centers where they are currently caring for these turtles with a goal of getting them back into the wild. What I participated in when I was over there was to survey different sites to find areas suitable for eventual release. We survived the current populations of turtles, the plants and habitat and worked with the locals. I worked at three sites, I think nine overall were surveyed. It was extremely remote, some of the locals had never met or seen foreigners. The heat was really intense and every plant had spines! We saw lemurs, lizards, snakes and of course tortoises! I lived in a little tent, ate some pretty wild food and met some amazing people. While I was there I gathered reference for tortoises and native plants with sketches and photographs. This painting is based on all I saw and experienced there.''