I have finally pulled together a cohesive artist statement for my ocean series. It follows below.
Ocean
While it may seem cliché to say, thanks to the myriad of politician’s constant talk of it, the ocean is the largest natural expanse we have in this planet. It contains more life than anywhere else and covers more of the earth than any landmass. I am positive as well, that many have seen the ocean in its pristine form—A whale or shark breaching the water, jellyfish floating calmly through the sea, and so forth. These are scenes that we conjure when we envision the ocean. Indeed, these are the images that I have come to cherish, along with the serenity that the ocean has brought to my life. The next generation may not however, instead, when the ocean is thought of, the images they may see are manmade plastics— bags, bottles and other debris.
A changing climate is not something that waits for people to understand it. It is immediate! This immediacy translates well into the process of cyanotypes, where the bright blue colors may not last.
Each image was created by first capturing images with a camera and then creating a negative and though a chemical reaction of ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide produces the final image. This is reminiscent of the many reactions taken place in the ocean everyday as a result of increased pollution and environmental changes. The reaction occurs when the suns UV rays are exposed to the hand coated paper. In this way, the same source that is causing the warming of our earth is also illuminating the images that hope to protect it.
Not the only element of the process, but water is also important to the creation and meaning of the images. Cyanotypes cannot be created without a large amount of water to hone the prints final blue tone. In this way, my own interaction with these images is leaving a foot print in the grander scheme of the planet. There is truly no way to not have an impact, instead it is how we choose to live in harmony alongside the planet.
My goal is to not strictly document our impact, because that has already been done. Rather, I want to insight a conversation about how we interact with our oceans and our environment, and I hope to start the process of generating new ideas on how we can restore a balance between us and the ocean. I want to invoke the feeling that the ocean is mysterious, it is bizarre, and it needs the help of co-inhibitors to survive.