Order & Control: Ocean Series

The ocean series began as a break from what I regarded as the more traditional still-life elements. Of course, shells and fish have appeared in numerous still-life paintings throughout the centuries; but more often than not as supporting players in a broader scene of eatables.

One of the first objects I preserved in surgical spirits was an octopus. This seemed something truly alien to look at in its glass jar, but equally quite captivating and beautiful with its patterned tentacles. I wanted to turn something perhaps lacking in obvious beauty into something obviously beautiful. There was beauty within; I could feel that, even if I couldn’t yet see it. There is, in fact, beauty in almost every object, if we look hard enough – although beauty in some objects is obviously far harder to extract. Squid have appeared in several of my paintings for the wonderful colour and dappled patterns they possess. Again, not an obvious choice for still-life paintings, but then some of my paintings are not obviously still-life.

Using shells comes from a long fascination with the sea. Fifteen years prior to these paintings I was in the Caribbean Island of Grenada, where I travelled around the island from bay to bay searching for shells. I placed each group of shells from a particular bay into its own sealed bag. These were named and numbered. These bags went into a wonderful old cigar box that I handed to my partner as a gift. When I found the shells out of their named and numbered bags, all confused and mixed up in the box, I knew – by the horror I felt – that I had a strange obsessive desire to compartmentalise things, to control and order them; to somehow keep them safe and permanent; to name and number beauty as a way of preserving it. Little did I know that somewhere down the line I would compartmentalise beauty again, but this time in paintings rather than bags and cigar boxes.