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Artist Reception
Friday, September 25th 2026 5-7pm
405 N. River Street - Hot Springs, SD 57747
As de-extinction moves from speculation toward reality, this exhibition lets us indulge in imagining what it might be like to share our contemporary landscape with mammoths. This body of work by renowned Dutch wildlife artist Esther van Hulsen blurs the boundary between art and artifact using materials with direct ties to the mammoth itself.
The paintings use pigments containing traces of woolly mammoth DNA supplied through the Harvard laboratory of geneticist Dr. George Church, brushes made from mammoth hair sourced from a museum collection in Siberia, and handcrafted paper made from recycled Asian elephant fiber. Each mammoth painting is also accompanied by strands of mammoth hair ethically recovered from specimens preserved in the Siberian Arctic.
Commissioned by a private patron for the occasion, with additional works contributed by Van Hulsen, the collection is offered at auction for the benefit of The Mammoth Site.
As an active paleontological research site, The Mammoth Site is one of the richest deposits of mammoth remains, including at least 58 Columbian and three woolly mammoths. Their in-situ preservation offers researchers an unusually unique complete record of mammoth life and Ice Age environmental conditions.
The exhibition leaves the mammoth suspended between fossil and frontier.
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Works are available through direct purchase or online bidding.
As part of this touring exhibition, all acquired works will remain with the collection through the close of the tour, currently anticipated to continue into 2027. Following the final exhibition, buyers may arrange insured shipment or personal pickup.
Proceeds benefit The Mammoth Site and support its ongoing research, education, and preservation programs.
ON VIEW: SEPTEMBER 5 - 27 2026
Esther van Hulsen
Drøbak, Norway
“I have been drawing and painting animals for as long as I can remember. My parents had to push me to start learning to walk, as I would just sit around and draw animals all day. There have never been other subjects of more interest to me…it has always been animals, both living and extinct.
There is just something magical about wildlife. not only the sheer diversity in sizes, colors, appearances, but also in characters. I like to get up close and personal, who is this animal? Is it shy, bold, curious, mean, caring? I want to capture the essence of it on a personal level, tell its story through my art.”
Born in the Netherlands in 1981, Esther completed a Bachelors in Communicative Design and Scientific Illustration at the historic Dutch Art Academy Minerva. Ever since she has been working as a professional wildlife artist. She moved to Norway in 2006, where she and her husband Stian live surrounded by beautiful forests and fjords and abundant wildlife. The Internet and frequent travel to far away places keep her connected with global wildlife and her many followers.
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Esther van Hulsen´s award-winning work has appeared in a broad range of exhibitions and publications worldwide, from Nature Magazine and National Geographic, to the Prehistoric Times, American Falconry Magazine, and Popular Science. Her originals are featured in numerous museum collections in both Europe and the United States, including the Smithsonian Museum, the Fossil State Park in Nevada, Naturhistorisk Museum in Oslo, and Natuurmuseum Fryslan in the Netherlands.
She has illustrated over 30 books, which have been published worldwide. In 2024 Esther was commissioned to do a series of large format water color portraits of endangered animals, representing keystone species in each of San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance’s eight global conservation hubs, which were sold on a large fundraiser auction. Van Hulsen is a passionate conservationist, and has donated numerous works in support of international programs to prevent extinctions.
An unusual opportunity came her way in 2016, when she was commissioned to illustrate an extinct octopus with 95 million year old ink extracted from the original fossil, re-creating a long lost technique pioneered by paleontologist Mary Anning and her colleagues in 1826.