UNDER THE SEA
Oil on canvas, 36 x 48 inches, 2002
(Private collection, Lake Forest, Florida)
Under the Sea was one of the most complex and time-consuming works of the artist. The idea for such a painting developed over many years and was first attempted on a small scale in the earlier painting, The Artisan Gallery. The present composition depends on combining renderings of a number of real, colorful, beautiful tropical fish and shells with the imaginary sunken ship with its treasure and two lucky divers, underwater rocks, and the King of the Sea with his entourage. Among the real inhabitants of the sea included in the painting are: a crab, a seahorse, a red anemone fish, an undulated triggerfish, a Moorish idol, a harlequin sweet lips, a moray eel, a boxfish, a queen wrasse, a blotched triggerfish, and a long-nosed angelfish. There are many coral and sponge formations, some based on existing sea creatures and some entirely imaginary. Most (but not all) of the background fish and the shoals at the top of the painting are also products of the artist's imagination. The complexity of the painting depended mainly on "draping" the sea weeds, coral, and sponges, over the earlier completed grey, green, and brown rocks of the background and over the sunken ship; this required literally thousands of tiny brushstrokes. The larger, realistic fish, were then superimposed over everything else. The final result, when seen up close (please use the enlargements below), creates a vision perfect for Florida. Accordingly, a reproduction of this colorful painting was chosen as a cover for the Spring 2006 Rollins Alumni Magazine.