Tallmadge Doyle

Artist statement, Celestial Ocean

The series, Celestial Oceans, considers intricate systems of microscopic ocean life forms simultaneously with the expansive telescopic realm of our solar system’s star formations. These natural realities, dissimilar in scope yet, at times indistinguishable in form, overlap and intertwine in my imagination offering boundless creative potential.

This work serves as a playground for new realities too energetic to be positioned in any one place, where color is ethereal, vivid, and brilliant and where light is unpredictable and form vibrates, allowing access into the immensity of the unexplored abundance and to imagine what is often unseen by human eyes.

This inquiry was initially inspired by a phenomenon nicknamed by marine scientists “The Blob”, a mass of warm water found off the Pacific Coast of Alaska, first appearing in 2013. The Blob moved southward to the Northwest and California coasts negatively disrupting marine wildlife from zooplankton to salmon and whale migrations.

Celestial Ocean is a multiple image projected installation of dioramas built from paper using etching, India ink, pigment pencils, acrylic, arrival ink jet, plastic aquarium plants, and collage with ocean sound track. View the movie here: