The Aquatic Theatre (Panel 2) 50 x 45 cm 2006

Contained within the tank are enactments of scenes, cataclysmic impacts between the forces above and below the water. The combat crosses back and forth over the seam between the two worlds.

The inevitable downfall of pride simultaneously reveals the fragility of the human built machine, as Moby Dick, a giant force of seemingly of supernatural proportions, destroys it at will.

‘…In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride…’

‘…the solid white buttress of his (Moby Dick) forehead smote the ship’s starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.’

‘…Whom call you Moby Dick? A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster…’

When he does not refer to white directly, Melville repeatedly describes a cold, sepulchral pallor or semi-opacity. It features often as an omen of tragedy or destruction. I have attempted to convey this quality in the painting, of something simultaneously repelling and alluring.

‘…A vast pulpy mass (a squid), furlongs long in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-colour…’

‘…The glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble tomb…’

‘…the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass…’


(Quotations: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick)

The Aquatic Theatre (Panel 6) 2006

Leviathans

Fish Hell is a painting where the tragedy of the Raft of the Medusa has gone to be immortalized and the agony eternally replayed, under the threat of the predator fish. The leviathan as main protagonist, an avenger, a warrior angel, reappears in the later painting, Flight and Charge. A messenger of doom, it is impartial yet terrible. Moby Dick is a fine example of this breed (Moby Dick, Melville, 1851).