Christian Gronau
likes "all animals and certain people". He painted the HABITAT
cards in the peace and quiet of the handmade wooden house where
he lives in the backwoods of Canada.
After studying geology Christian left Germany for less-travelled
parts of the world. He and Aileen Douglas, who had left her native
Scotland for similar reasons, found themselves a home halfway
between saltwater tides and a beaver pond on a small island off
the coast of British Columbia.
Twenty years living in nature´s mainstream has intensified their
sensitivity towards the myriad of other-than-human forms of life,
a sensitivity little known by the majority of the human denizens
of today´s mechanised, industrialised world.
The HABITAT cards are a natural expression of their concerns about
human responsibility. The photographs for the RACCOON cards were
taken within Christian and Aileen´s immediate environment, where
birds and animals can be observed every day in action and interaction
- without fear of their human co-habitants.
