Painting the Rising Ocean

To many of us the concept of rising seas is academic.  We use models, we write papers, we make many projections.  About twenty-five years ago painter Larry Mitchell began painting communities that are already beginning to go under.  Says William Fox who writes for the Center for Art + Environment Blog:  "Mitchell doesn’t just sail around the islands, but has formed longlasting friendships with their inhabitants, and a deep attachment to their independent lives and family-based fishing businesses. He saw how the twin pressures of economic globilization and global warming were eroding both the local societies and shorelines of the islands, and began to paint them, mostly in panoramas made from a vantage point slightly offshore. Mitchell’s depictions of ocean water are an astonishment. “There’s an underlying geometry to water. It’s infinitely complex, and a digital camera can’t capture it,” he told me last year. From fifteen feet away it looks like you could dive into the paintings. He joked, ““I’m a photographer; I just work really slow.” But once you’re within five feet of the canvas, you realize just how abstract is the brushwork. As he puts the lessons he earned in London, ”I learned a lot about paint by pushing it around to no end.”  

For more of the Fox blog click here.
For images of Larry Mitchell's paintings click here.