Vancouver Islanders have spotted waves of jelly fish stretched along shorelines this fall, including Nanaimo artist, Lena Rasmussen, who found beauty in the sea creatures. She created an entire art series based on her findings during a stroll near Neck Point Park in late August.
Rasmussen officially launched the work earlier this month and her acrylic paintings remain on display at the Nanaimo Arts Council gallery for the rest of the month.
The concept for the 'I See Gold' series began when she walked the edge of the water and saw several people poking at several flat blobs of jelly about the size of a large dinner plate. People all over the Island and the Mainland have spotted similar findings this year.
Ocean tour companies reported seeing clusters of about 30 in the water, while residents from various shores came across groups of 20 in some instances, according to Canwest News Service.
The sightings in Nanaimo intrigued Rasmussen who took photographs, created her own colours from acrylic paint and immediately went to work. Painting relieves her of the chronic pain she experiences in her muscles and joints. The cancer survivor suffers from a list of illnesses that doctors can do little about, including severe endometriosis, arthritis and fibromyalgia.
Rasmussen wanted to capture the "gold" images she could see while staring at the reddish-brown jelly puddles.
"I swear it looked like I could see gold shimmering through its jellied body," she said.
"It was the way the light was shining on and through it. I had to paint its beauty."
The cyanea capillata jellyfish are at the top of a four-year population cycle, according to a marine biologist working in Nanaimo.
Their lifespan starts in the spring and matures in early September when they drift ashore and die.
They occupy waters from the mouth of the Fraser River to Comox and through the Juan de Fuca Strait as far as Sooke.
Long tentacles stretch and flow, collecting food while drifting in the water's current; on shore, they cannot survive.
Rasmussen wanted to depict the gold images she could see underneath the blobs, as if "you were looking right through them," she explained.
Her paintings will be displayed in the arts council gallery at the Nanaimo North Town Centre shopping mall until the end of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment