In the 1960s, when the Zambezi flooded in Zimbabwe, a rescue mission called Operation Noah took boats out to lift stranded animals from the water. Zambezi is drawn from it: a flotilla of boats, each captained by a different animal, drifting gently down the river. The boats themselves come from ceramic originals sculpted by the Sotho artist Benet Zondo for Ardmore.
The cast is properly mixed. Zebras, monkeys, elephants and hyenas are among the passengers, with the occasional crocodile alongside and a haughty flamingo standing apart from the whole business. They are painted in soft watercoloured washes rather than flat colour, which keeps a design with a great deal of incident from becoming loud, and Ardmore's ceramic sensibility shows in the patterning on the boats.
The roll is a wide 0.7 m, 10.05 m long, with a 102.1 cm repeat and a half drop, so alternate lengths are offset and the flotilla scatters across the wall instead of forming ranks. It is genuinely a paper for a child's room and a grown-up one alike: the drawing is good enough to sustain adult attention, and the subject is warm enough for a nursery. Rush matting, painted furniture and plenty of daylight suit it.
