Artist's Note:

After painting the Diamondback, it dawned on me I had never painted a monkey or an ape. I thought this could be a fun blend of painting flesh and also fur, and that it would be a good test of my ability to convey expression in my painting. So I went looking, and found this sad looking Crested Macaque which I thought would make a perfect subject. Classed as an Old World Monkey, the Crested Macaque is a tailless, bald faced, and small monkey found in the Tangkoko reserve in Indonesia, on the island of Sulawesi.

They live in small groups of up to 25 animals, but will sometimes be found in larger groups of up to 75. They are not pairbonded animals. They live in the rainforest eating food that they can forage, with meals ranging from seeds and fruit to insects, and even small lizards and frogs. They are considered as pests, and are hunted by the locals both to stop them destroying crops, and also for meat. Regarding the painting, I like the haunted look in its eyes, and this is something I think I conveyed successfully. For more info on them, see here.