Cindy Scharka
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
With nearly 30 years experience in the animation, Cindy has been involved in the arts ever since she drew a picture of Fred Flintstone and got a job working for Hanna Barbera back in 1984!
During these years she has developed many skills and been involved in many mentoring and teaching roles related to drawing and the technical side of animation. Currently she is completing a Degree with a double major of Fine Art and Visual Culture through Curtin University in WA.
As an emerging artist with a dynamic loose style underpinned by her structured artistic career, Cindy is inspired by the people and urban environment in which she lives. With a preference for ink and charcoal, her personal art work is reflective of the connections she makes with people and places, through observation and experience.
ARTIST'S REASON FOR PARTICIPATING
The inspiration to be involved with Project Orangutan is through her belief that there is a growing disconnection in the physical real world that we live in, even though technically as a society, we are so advanced. Participating in a study and depiction of one of these amazing animals is a way to assist in highlighting the connection we need to make with nature. To care for the creatures we share the planet with.
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TULIP
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The Orangutan Who Traded Chains for the Canopy
In April 2012, a man in West Kalimantan contacted International Animal Rescue (IAR) and the Forestry Department to confess that he had been keeping a baby orangutan captive. He claimed to have traded his gun for the young female, after being told by the men who captured her that they had killed her mother and planned to kill the infant next. Her name became Tulip—a soft name for a survivor with a fierce will to live.
When the team found her, Tulip was tied on a leash in a cramped 2m² cage in a backyard, surviving on little more than bananas and sweet biscuits. She was scared but otherwise in good physical condition, with a healthy appetite and a glimmer of curiosity that hinted at her resilience.
Tulip began her journey to freedom in IAR’s baby quarantine, later graduating to baby school, and then forest school with the bigger juveniles. There, she came into her own—climbing high into the trees and investigating every new enrichment item that appeared. Her spirit began to shine.
After more than 11 years of rehabilitation at the IAR Orangutan Centre in Sungai Awan, Tulip finally took her last steps toward freedom. On June 26, 2023, she was released into Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park, alongside five other rehabilitated orangutans. Her story, once one of captivity and survival, now unfolds among the leaves of the wild forest—just as nature intended.
