What I Sea

I was thinking about the wonderful Dr Sylvia Earle while painting this and the work she is doing to raise awareness of 8 million + tons of plastic finds its way to our seas every year.

This is a big canvas 1.7 metres by 1.2 metres and I painted it in 5 days. That is quick for me. I didn’t give my oil paint any time to dry – just wet colours on wet.
When I finished the painting the first thing I noticed was how the water surface looked kind of like battered metal – at the same time the name ‘battered fish’ popped into my mind. I like the play on words – it’s not fish covered in batter that I’m suggesting but the offence of battery. A wilfull act causing harm to another. If marine life had the same rights as us then maybe the chemicals we are dumping would constitute a battery.
The site I painted is close by commercial fishing trawlers so it seemed to fit. I also like that there’s no fish in the picture. That’s kind of unsatisfying. And that kind of discordance is what my work is all about. Polluted waters looking pretty.

Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana

Kia tere karohirohi

I mua i tou hurarahi.

May the sea glisten as greenstone

May the shimmer of light

Ever dance across your pathway

What I sea:

Our lives are busy. It’s understandable that so many become blind to the state of our environment. It’s tempting to imagine everything will be fine, and our landscapes will always be beautiful.

I look for locations where industry and waterways meet to capture a moment of beauty. Among the pipes there is a play of sunlight on the water, the colours of the sea shimmer from teal to purple.

Looking for the beauty through the bits of plastic is like seeing someone who is bone tired smile. I want to share these at risk areas, as I see them - fragile, polluted and beautiful. It’s a reminder of how much we still have that's worth fighting for.

The Paintings:

In this series of oil on canvas paintings I want to capture the dynamism of a moment. I paint 'wet on wet', laying different colours against each other. Up close, when I am painting, it's a swirl of colour, but take a step back, the image completes. I love that you are making it as much with your eye as I am with my brush. That’s what I want to pass on. You aren't passive - we are all in this together.

Outside every picture frame is another world close by, a bridge, a power plant that you can't quite see but you know is there.

Contemporary NZ artist

What I Sea