Tidal.22 Art Prize

Natural, cultural, sensual, and ecological daydreams of our sea.
 
At Bass Strait’s edge gazing out to sea, I see her shimmering surface distracting us with surface things - the shallow and known. However, what lurks beneath draws me in. The dark tidal mystery of her powerful undertow. All you can do is surrender and trust this unseen thing drawing you away from the passivity of the shallows, towards the depth.
 
We humans are also mostly water and the moon also pulls our inner tides. What is she saying to me? ‘Risk all, dive in, break the shimmering beauty of our surface life and allow these tidal currents to take us deeper into ourselves, our undiscovered oceans.’
 
These pictures also examine external worlds. The iconic Tasmanian light upon the ocean. The sun’s rays and the wind’s zephyrs conspiring to create a Morse Code in gusts - a rippling SOS
 
Staring at the sequined fabric of her surface. I also see a future ocean horror. A dystopian Bass Strait, future of salmon farms, corruption, flotsam, oil slicks, cruelty, algae. It is not only her romantic beauty pushing my brush, it is these darker destinies she sends in silent code of wind on water.