36x36 Acrylic/ Canvas/ Resing/ Glitter/ Silver Leaf/ Gold Leaf. Ready to hang.
When I was 7 years old, I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Smelling the salt air for the first time was like breathing on a different, better planet. The sky was gray, a thunderstorm was rolling in, and the currents had waves surging high, deep and fast. We walked along the beach, picking up seashell after seashell. There was a shark warning, with a helicopter on a megaphone telling everyone to get out of the water.
My Grandfather was in the water, snorkel mask on, floating face down in the waves. My Grandmother was on the shore, screaming at him to get out of the water, that he’d be sucked out into the tide or shark bait. Drunk and unaware, he refused. None of us had any idea why. Looking back now, it all seems chaotic. At the time all I cared about was the salt air smell, and the seashells.
When he got (safely) out of the water, he handed me a giant Horse Conch spiral shell. He told me that when I held it up to my ear, no matter where I was in the world, I’d be able to hear the ocean. My Grandfather died shortly after that, but I kept that shell for most of my life. It’s the only memory I have of him.
Sometimes metaphorically that shell feels like all the parts of my younger self that I’ve lost, or traded, or can only faintly remember. Transformation is a long road. The seashell would know. Imagine being the size of a quarter, a tiny speck next to the whole ocean, and what most people keep an eye out for, comment on, and think they can possess. Starting off as an exoskeleton, evolving and shedding into grains of sand - the process repeats on a loop. How many layers do we have to shed to reveal what’s next? How much more karma could I possibly have to work out?
Do we focus on the pain of the shedding or the possibility of what we can become? When I stare out at the ocean these days I rarely consider the darkness of its depth and endlessness. I like to watch the sunlight dance at the surface. I wanted to make something that brought the power of that memory back into my current life. The shell, the salt, the light, and the hope.
This painting is a portrait of knowing, transformation, being, and power.
