Saltwater Gallery

I once overheard someone say, “A painting serves no useful purpose, but it feels good to have it up on the wall.”

Of course a painting can be just a decoration to help liven-up a room, but a painting also reveals something about its owner. Why did someone choose this particular painting? What quality does this artwork have that, out of the multitudes of possibilities available, someone chose this one to admire and display?

As an artist painting Seascapes and Marine Art, I have come to know my collectors. They come from many different backgrounds. One is a shark researcher who spends most days out on the water on a research vessel and who is fascinated by all undersea life. Another is a landlocked doctor who spends his off-hours planning his next scuba-diving vacation. Yet another is a mother who lives far from the ocean but whose favourite memories are of the times spent at the beach on holiday, swimming and surfing with her family. These people all have one thing in common: a love of the ocean and a desire to return to it. They all feel a connection to the ocean and many feel that their lives have been changed by it. I understand their passion for the ocean because I feel it too.

For me there is no better feeling than heading out on a boat on a glassy morning, the surface of the water turquoise and reflecting the blue sky and billowing clouds that stretch off into the horizon. The boat leaves the dock, weaving slowly through a mangrove channel, then picks up speed where the mouth of the channel opens into the open ocean and you feel the wind and spray on your face and watch the seabirds circle and soar above the boat. Soon the coastline falls away behind you and you can see a line of surf breaking in the distance ahead and near it the blue water becomes turquoise again showing shallow water. You know that a coral reef is there, it’s Stoney coral spine acting as a barrier to the power of the surging deep water.

The diveboat anchors and you leave off your happy chatting with the other divers to ready your gear. You feel the anticipation of plunging into the water around the boat which, when you gaze down into it over the side, is now dazzlingly clear over a white sand bottom. A few hundred yards from the boat lies the reef, a shallow reef of coral rock which, at three to ten meters depth, is perfect for snorkeling.

While everyone is still bustling with their gear, you are now ready and you get the nod from the dive master to go. You are the first one in with a splash, holding onto your mask with one hand as your skin tingles with the sudden freshness of the water. You start off, hands at your side, legs finning you away from the boat toward the dark rocks of the reef. At once you see the shadows of some fish gliding over the seagrass beds below you. And you look closer to see a torpedo-like barracuda patrolling the coral rocks that dot the white sand like volcanic islands rising out of a sea.

Around the rocks play schools of small fishes, the yellow and black striped sergeant majors, and slender wrasses in rainbow colours darting in and out of tiny crevasses in the rounded bulk of a brain coral. Here and there you see the antenna of a lobster waggling from their hiding places under the rocks and a shock of brilliant yellow as a school of grunts or schoolmaster snapper drift by. This yellow is set off by the complementary rich purple of an inevitable school of tangs loafing on the leeward side of the rock, out of the current.

You see the purple sea-fans on the reef and, as you draw near, you know that for the next hour you get to drift among them as they wave lazily in the current. They are relaxing to watch as you peer behind every rock, never knowing what delightful creature will greet you next. A school of brilliantly-coloured Parrotfish pass from behind you and you become part of the school as they swim with you for a while, pecking sharply at the coral rock with their beak-like teeth as they go. As they swim on ahead, you can hear them munching away on the coral rock from a long distance as they feed.

Then, maybe you venture out to the ocean side of the reef where there is a break in the rock and the bright sand bottom slides quickly away, down into the blue depths. You see a grey shadow there, a large object moving gracefully out of the depths into the shallow waters of the reef and your scalp prickles to realize you have been graced with the presence of a large reef shark. You stay calm, control your breathing, and marvel at the power of the animal, as it effortlessly glides through the irresistible current.

I could go on for hours but you get the idea: I absolutely love being in the ocean. A day like that - the beauty of it, the excitement and the feeling of being a part of the natural environment, gives me a primal joy, a calm euphoria. And this calm euphoria creates in my spirit a feeling of peace. All of the stresses, the worries of everyday life are forgotten. There is only the direct experience of beauty, of nature at its most abundant, of peace.

I was shocked when I first experienced this and it changed me. I knew then that I had to make this experience a part of my life and, no matter what it took, I had to get back there again. Since then I have returned to the ocean again and again, whenever I have had the chance, and I have never felt better than when in, on, or near the ocean.

When I returned home, I often recalled what I saw and how I felt there and, being a trained graphic designer (and self-taught painter) I began to paint it. As soon as I had posted just two of my ocean paintings to a new social media account I was asked if they were for sale. Apparently the artwork spoke to an anonymous someone who enthusiastically described how the paintings had captured a moment for her that made her feel a connection with the ocean she loved and she wanted to have it in her home (she has since ordered several paintings, we’ve become friends, and she is one of my best collectors).

A marine painting, especially to someone with a deep affinity for the ocean, can be a way of communicating a feeling of beauty, of passion and of connection to the ocean that brings peace to the viewer. It is this peace that I want to share with my audience: whether it is the excitement of a powerful wave breaking over rocks, or a starfish washed up upon a sandy beach or a heron wading in a tranquil bay at sunrise, I hope my work inspires in the viewer a feeling of beauty and connection to the ocean and that this brings them peace in their day.

If you love the ocean, then I invite you to browse through my work and let me know what speaks to you. I hope you will order a painting or a print and that you will love it. If this artwork, displayed in your home or office, brings you as much happiness and peace as I felt in creating it then that is the usefulness of a painting.

Lately, I’ve been thinking of ways to help share a love of the ocean and ocean art with a larger audience. Not everyone who loves the sea can buy a one-of-a-kind work of art that captures their feeling for it, but most would enjoy a reproduction of these images to display in their home or on the screens of their electronics.

One idea that I’ve been considering is to offer high-resolution digital scans of original paintings to subscribers for a low monthly membership. The high-resolution scans could be printed by the subscriber onto a substrate of their choice: canvas, paper or even pillow cases or a coffee mug. In addition, a screen-resolution scan would be included for use as a screen saver. Important benefits of this model are that it removes the shipping charges, and eliminates the cost to the environment that packaging and shipping represents, which makes it more ocean-friendly and an environmentally-conscious choice.

If this subscription model is something you might be interested in, or if you’d like to learn more, please let me know. I think it’s an exciting idea, a great way to share artwork at low cost that speaks to a love for the ocean, and I’d be happy to hear your feedback pro or con.