“Pigcasso would have been a bacon sandwich at 6 months old,” said shelter owner Joanne Lefson.
From slaughterhouse to the art gallery, this painting pig's life took a turn for the better ever since her rescue by a South African sanctuary.
Pigcasso now spends her days painting abstract expressionist art for purchasers around the world.
“Pigcasso would have been a bacon sandwich at 6 months old,” Joanne Lefson of Farm Sanctuary SA told InsideEdition.com. “Instead at 2-and-a-half [years], she’s inspiring people to look at pigs differently.”
Lefson is the founder of the animal rescue outside of Cape Town.
She explained that in the early days of the shelter, she had gone to a local hog farm and rescued a few animals, including Pigcasso.
Because Lefson knew pigs are “smart intelligent animals,” she brought out some items for her to play with and the piglet quickly took a liking to the paintbrush.
“It wasn’t long before she was dancing the brush across the canvas,” she said.
Her paintings started gaining international attention when buyers from New York reached out and offered $800 for a small piece.
As her fame and talent grew, businesses, including Swatch and Nissan, reached out to feature Pigcasso in advertisements around the world.
Pigcasso now regularly sells her work, with an average painting going for $1,600, all of which goes back to the sanctuary to support the operation.
“Pigcasso is basically the quarterback at the sanctuary, covering all the running costs,” Lefson said.
She said she hopes Pigcasso’s newfound fame will encourage fans around the world to show more compassion to animals.
“People are so far removed from what they eat and the average consumer would never eat meat if they knew how these animals were raised,” Lefson said. “After all, Pigcasso is a unique, one-of-a-kind, talented diva pig.”
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