ARTIST STATEMENT
‘Bleached Future’ responds to the fragile beauty of marine life. Our reef contains ecosystems that are the largest living entity on our planet. When corals are stressed by changes such as temperature, light, or nutrients they expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing coral bleaching which leaches a reef of its yellow, greens and pinks, leaving behind a graveyard of brittle white. We will be writing an obituary for the vast coral ecosystems. ‘Bleached Future’ explores the past and questions the future. Conversations and actions need to occur to protect the fragility and fading of this underwater world.
ARTWORK PROCESS
Focus on how reefs have been affected in past, resent and comment in the future.
• A visual narrative - referencing the current state of reefs.
• Colour forms placed closest to the base to represent the healthy ecosystem (living reefs) of the past. White acrylic shapes placed on different height tubes, suggesting the future.
• Rods suggest different stages of degradation and the fragile balance to changes like increasing temperatures, sea levels rising, and the chemical balance of the ocean being altered.
• Gold symolic of preciousness.
• Juxtaposition between a reef which represents life and another which represents death.
