(Multimedia – Adobe Photoshop, colored pencil, ink, and paint marker)
My art alludes to the giant floating turtle islands of ancient lore, seeming islands that misbegotten travelers would discover and use as sanctuary, unaware that their island was actually a creature of its own. I chose this image because once again, humanity is taking advantage of the ocean without thought to the fact that it is alive. However, now we are not only taking refuge in our turtle islands, but we are killing them. Ocean acidification poisons and alters the homes of peaceful, beautiful marine species. All ocean life is affected by this radical alteration to their environments, from turtles to bivalves. Herein lays the significance of the upper half of my artwork, which shows a mass of dark building and smokestacks vomiting plumes of terrible gases into the sky. It is imperative that our ignorance of our turtle islands – the oceans – turn to awareness. This is the awareness that this work is meant to provoke.
