Sea Monster

About this work:

HIC SUNT DRACONES — “Here there are dragons.”

These words are found on the Ostrich Egg Globe—the first globe known to exist with the New World on it—which is thought to have been created by Leonardo da Vinci.

Sea monsters are pervasive across cultures. Their origins are numerous and wide-ranging. They are dragons: symbols of the unknown, the unexplored, dangerous. Symbols of chaos.

I created this work inspired by 19th-century Romantic artists, primarily J.M.W. Turner and Caspar David Friedrich. In works such as Snow Storm: Steam Boat off a Harbor’s Mouth and Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, we have an external perspective. What would be the view of the sea from the perspective of one aboard the steam boat? What would the wanderer see in the sea of fog? This is the first person perspective, looking out onto a tumultuous sea and sky.

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