These Paper Animals Raise Awareness About Endangered Species

By
Emily Johnson
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Judging by his impressive portfolio, Patrick Cabral clearly knows his way around paper. In his latest series, he sculpts and carves out images of endangered animals, using plain sheets of paper. His series includes impressive renditions the rhino, an elephant, and a panda bear.

According to the Philippines-based artist, his aim with this series is to educate the public about the plight of at-risk animals. Supported by the philanthropic organization Acts of Kindness, and World Wildlife Fund Philippines, a portion of the sales from this collection has gone towards supporting nature preservations in the Philippines.

But Cabral’s creative talent isn’t only restricted to paper. A multi-disciplinary designer and type artist, his practice also includes calligraphy, sculpting, web designing, and even app development. According to his bio, by the mere age of 11, Cabral had taken the odd job of writing the names of graduating students’ high school diplomas.

“I don’t know what to call myself,” he admitted once in an interview with spot.ph. “And I don’t really care about labels.” Whatever his label is, we’re digging it.

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Man I would love to be a turtle right now who has evolved a mechanism to self-isolate. I've been more productive lately because I have been staying away from social media. I would rather concentrate on things that I can change and hopefully learn new skills during the lockdown. I regret not buying a sewing machine when I had the time. Let me take this opporrunity to thank the people who had commissioned new work before the world got crazy. You not only helped me but also the people who are close to me. I know how scary it would have been to worry about finances during this time of crisis. Know that you have helped a lot of people through me. And to those who have more than enough, please consider commissioning an artist friend. I am sure it would go a long way. Let's all look out for each other.

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Second of 3 pieces that I made for my UK art broker. I didn’t even ask where this would be displayed. All I know is they work with the world top hotels. I hope this gets to one of those places where Royalties stays and they would commission me to make similar piece, but in gold 🙂 Recently we had an inquiry from a hotel in Qatar for 500 pieces of artwork. I had to decline because I don’t want to flood the world with my work… and also I believe in the law of supply and demand. If I can do just 4-6 pieces of my work per year and charge premium, then I would very much prefer that than have millions of dollars but compromise the value of my work. I am always reminded by a Quincy Jones quote, “God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money”. I never really work with money as main motivation. Any money that I make get spent on funding more expensive project and helping people around me. I don’t like keeping a lot of money. I grew up with so little that I am really uncomfortable around it. This is the third panda that I made. It’s also the biggest. I make big artworks now because I want my patrons to display it on the main area and not just on hallways as a friend of mine once commented because of its then small size. If I am going to spend a lot of time working on something, then it better be front and center. It’s amazing that when I started my endangered series, the giant panda was still endangered and when I launched the project, it got removed from the list. I am not saying that I single-handedly saved the giant panda 🙂 it just gives me hope for humanity.

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