ANIMAL ART OF THE DAY for International Chameleon Day: Sean Kenney’s LEGO masterpiece

Today (9 May 2024) is the inaugural celebration of International Chameleon Day!

Wildlife Madagascar is launching this animal appreciation day to highlight the remarkable diversity of chameleon species and shed light on the challenges they face in the wild. We are excited to honor these unique, extraordinary, and beautiful animals. Chameleons definitely deserve their day in the sun: they aren’t like any other species on Earth, they capture people’s imaginations, and they are in need of protection. We hope International Chameleon Day will encourage more people to appreciate and admire chameleons.
https://wildlifemadagascar.org/news-and-stories/international-chameleon-day/

LEGO Chameleon Art

To celebrate, here is one of my favorite pieces of contemporary chameleon art: a gigantic chameleon sculpture built entirely out of LEGO! Built by LEGO master builder Sean Kenney, the sculpture contains 49,034 LEGO pieces and took 511 hours to design and build!

sign:

JEWELED CHAMELEON

(Furcifer campani)

This vulnerable species of lizard is one of the most vibrantly colored and beautifully textured reptiles. Agricultural production and bush fires threaten their Madagascan habitat.

Think Like an Artist

"In the initial design stages, we determine how to emphasize the animals' most interesting aspects. The spiraling tail of the chameleon leads the viewer's eye up around the tree limb, through the increasingly dazzling colors of the body, and into the almost hidden recess that houses the eye."

-Sean Kenney

Above:
Jeweled Chameleon (Furcifer campani) sculpture by LEGO artist Sean Kenney, photographed at the 2019 world premiere of the exhibition “Sean Kenney’s Art Made with LEGO® Bricks“ at the Liberty Science Center in Newark, NJ, USA.
(photos by author)

You can see additional images of this amazing work, including behind-the-scenes photos of the build process, on Kenney’s official site here: https://seankenney.com/portfolio.php/jeweled-chameleon

While the show I saw the chameleon sculpture at is no longer running, it is now part of one of his current traveling exhibitions, Animal Super Powers. This exhibition is at the Topeka Zoo until 9 September 2024, and is next scheduled to show at the Rochester Museum & Science Center beginning 27 September 2024.

The Real-Life Animal Inspiration

As noted above, the species depicted is the Jeweled Chameleon (Furcifer campani), a threatened species endemic to the central highlands of Madagascar. And yes, they really can be this colorful and beautiful when they feel like it!

image via Bernard DUPONT on Wikimedia Commons

(As with other chameleons, they can change colors, but not to camouflage as popular myth suggests – rather, it is usually a response to environmental conditions and/or a signal of mood.)