This artwork is designed to Glow in the Dark. A dark room where the lights can be turned on and off is ideal. LED screen mounted short story would ideally be displayed next to the oil painting. With the lights on, the painting is a pretty superficial painting with surface beauty. In the darkness the darker perspective is illuminated and the reality of the artwork is brought to light.
As with most of my paintings and stories, the concept behind this project was to alter the viewers perspective to look deeper into the fish. The story is written in the fishes perspective, providing a viewpoint that they may not have considered. Taking pretty images at face value is common and while it's nice to have some pretty fish to show the world, there's much more to them than meets the eye. The glow in the dark aspect adds a different ambiance to the entire painting, sharing the feeling of foreboding that the fish in the story has with the viewer. Also, when the lights around you are out, it is very easy to imagine that the viewer themselves is in the water with the fish. A strange and unusual experience, some may feel an uncomfortable one as the eerie green of the fish make them larger than life. As more fish become extinct, there's also the underlying message that in the future we may only see certain species in photographs and paintings.
The Accompanying Short Story
Only Seen Here.
‘It’s happening
again, drift silently, carefully. Don’t make any sudden movements.’ I spoke
quietly to my companion. He turned my way and froze mid-turn. We stopped
swimming, drifting like pieces of ocean rubble. It was important that we stay
as still as possible, as quiet and immovable as the algae on the seaweed the
water tugged at below us. We both failed to hold our breaths, allowing small
tell-tale bubbles escaped to reveal us. It made our tiny hearts beat like drums
through the water, almost echoing back at us in the apparent darkness.
Unfortunately, the world wasn’t as dark as we liked to imagine and through the
gloom we often saw mirages of them.
Today was no different. Again, we were being watched.
I stared at the
invisible wall I knew was in the water. That wall stopped us from escaping, but
it also kept them away. I shivered at
the movement I saw, bracing myself for the sight I knew was coming, the sight
I’ve seen every day since the water changed. Beyond the wall, the entire world
shifted and a white eye filled the ocean, its vivid brightness creating a ghostly
haze. The giants were back and they were trying to find us.
I carefully drifted
towards the single burst of seaweed sprouting from the rocky floor. It was a
measly sprout, but in my terror, I liked to imagine it was an invincible bush
that would shroud me from the giant’s view. I felt exposed, isolated and completely
vulnerable in this endless water. That invisible wall could come down at any
moment leaving me mercilessly at the giant’s whims.
I wanted to scream
at them to stop looking at me, I wanted to tell them that I was brave and
strong and that they couldn’t scare me. Yet, as that eye blinked at me, I
understood that it saw absolutely every single scale and I had the
uncomfortable feeling that it knew my darkest secrets. I had nothing to hide
and I had everything to hide, but it was watching me and it was so very close.
Fear built within me as useless and pointless words swirled around my mind
creating a buzz that only I could hear. I was going crazy with fear and now,
instead of being frozen to avoid detection, I was frozen in place by my fear. I
was terrified.
Suddenly the world
went white and I thought I had fainted. The flash was so blinding it
illuminated everything in my underwater world. During that flash, it was like
time had stopped. I saw myself reflected in the invisible wall and the air
escaped from my mouth. I was there looking back at myself so I saw all of my
fear, my hopelessness and all of the once iridescent scales were a grey dull
mess. I had imagined myself a shimmering blue pink hued beauty in the darkness,
but here the truth revealed I was ugly physically and emotionally. My years of
captivity had changed me and what I once had been is long gone. That eye had
seen me like this. It had seen all my faults and shown me the reality, that I
was not what I should have been, I was a remnant of my kind. A shadow of what
once was.
Then time began
moving again and the flash was gone, leaving me blind with that unfortunate
reflection of myself burned into my mind. In self-loathing, I no longer cared
if the giants caught me again because I was so ghastly, nothing mattered
anymore. I darted away from the invisible wall, from the giant. I flittered
uselessly in a panic, trying to find someplace to hide myself, someplace to
disappear to forever, just as my kind most likely already had. We had not seen
another like us anywhere in this glass prison, perhaps we were the last of our
kind. Immortalized in our personal hell.
Then as fish do, I
forgot everything, thinking it but a dream. Only to be remembered when the
giants came back to instil the fear of my now dream. Every time the dream
returns, the nightmare becomes reality.
The giant walked
away smiling to herself, on her camera were two fish with dull coats and frozen
features. She smiled, flicking through the images, such calming creatures fish
were. These particular fish were rumoured to be close to extinction. Yet the girl
had them now immortalized in the photo as they were in the aquarium. They seem
happy, peaceful and safe from the dangers of life. Unfortunately, reality is
but an illusion of safety and captivity has its own dangers, emotional,
physical and very real. These two fish remain captive for all time to relive
the same horror, day after day. After all, they’re only seen here.