Water City is a large canvas, the panorama of a composite city's waterfront. The dualities of above and below water play with light, shadow, depth, height, and the ideas of many opposites. The City is densely populated with people and fish, the structures built and the remains left behind. A mirror waterline runs horizontally through the painting, reflecting aspects back and forth between water and land. Images float together from documented watery disasters, archeological sites, living religious practice, specific buildings and cities across the globe. The cross-cultural world of urban humans mirrors the world of marine creatures, all living and dying and exploring. This work took me a year to complete, melding together many images and thoughts through paint. Living in Seattle, we all navigate a world of city and water. The cross currents of how we live run through neighborhoods, ancestral homelands, Puget Sound, watersheds, burial grounds, our relationships. By turns we venerate and pollute our ocean. In this piece, the surface of the water coexists on the same plane with the depths, “normal” visual perspectives rising and falling across the canvas. Water City is an invitation to contemplation and discovery.
24" x 48"
2011
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