Pictures painted by elephants on display in Edinburgh

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Edinburgh (dpa) - Pictures said to have been painted by elephants, including a "self-portrait," have gone on display at an art gallery in Edinburgh.

Art graduate Victoria Khunapramot, 26, has brought the paintings from Thailand to the Dundas Gallery in the Scottish capital, where they went on show Friday.

They include "self-portraits" by Paya, who is said to be the only elephant to have mastered his own likeness.

Paya is one of six elephants whose keepers have taught them how to hold a paintbrush in their trunks. They drop the brush when they want a new colour, the BBC reported.

"Many people cannot believe that an elephant is capable of producing any kind of artwork, never mind a self-portrait," Khunapramot said.

"But they are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or 10 minutes - the only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush, so it gets handed to them," she added.

The animals are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations, said Khunapramot.

Khunapramot, who set up the Thai Fine Art company after studying the history of art at St Andrews' university in Scotland, followed by business management, said it took about a month to train the animals to paint.

Elephant expert Joyce Poole, who has studied elephants for 30 years, said she owned an elephant painting but had not come across animals painting their own images.

The Oslo-based scientist told the BBC: "I have seen elephants painting, but it was very free-flow. It's certainly capable of drawing an elephant, and could be trained, but might not really understand what it was doing."