Two New Year January paintings for Sullied Atlantic
3rd February, 2016
Well a belated Happy New Year and what better to celebrate 2016 than with two new painongs for the Sullied Atlantic collection.
The two recent paintings have stimulated a change of direction which will show itself in a forthcoming collection to be called Captures-I will explain that later in the news page with two preparatory drawings I have made as research for the collection.
While the Ghost Ships (The Mothball Fleet) were the initial inspiration, the generic ecological concerns that are threatening our oceans are now paramount to the devlopment of the work. I hope in the future to be able to research the notion of acidification by consulting with ecologists and marine biologists, something that I am looking forward to.
It seems to me now, that future work needs to be informed by first hand information from ecologists and oceanographers. This is an exciting prospect and I look forwsrd to making that happen and widening the theoretical horizon concerning the development of the collections of work. The two planned collections are Captures, (to be explained in the next news installment after this) and acidification.
But I am also thankful that the James River Ghost Flleet captured my imagination and opened my eyes to the massive ecological problems that face our oceans in our time. Human responsobility must act on this, remember, if the oceans die we will die with them.
Methodology
I went to Skye in August 2015 to photograph the purity of the Atlantic. No matter the weather, the purity of the inner and outer Hebrides is beyond question-at least at this moment in time! But then using the photographic information documented, I do the opposte on canvas. What is pure is transformed into a metaphor (Sullied Atlantic) for the darker side of how things could be if we do not harness the threat posed by acidification and the causality of such an imminent threat. Sullied Atlantic seeks to emmanate this.