Reflecting on my first year at Stony Brook University, I wonder how my introverted-self came to be consistently running from north to south campus, talking up teachers and other students I didn’t really know, and putting in all the extra work it takes to study two very different fields of study, on opposite sides of campus. I am a double major in Studio Art and Environmental Studies. When I am not painting, printing, or otherwise working in the Staller art studios, I’m in the water. I’ve had the opportunity to participate in scuba diving courses, and have recently received my Advanced Open Water and Rescue diving certification in the Scientific Diving course. I always get questions asking how I combine two such different majors. In answer, Submerged uses painting and printmaking to explore my experiences diving.

        When I dive, there are two very distinct aspects that I connect with. On the one hand, the world underwater is so overwhelming, so detailed, and so immense. On the other hand, whether it be due to lack of visibility, lower lighting, or the limited communication, the world becomes private and sectioned-off from the surface world; everything closes in, which appeals to my introverted side. It is this captivating mix of expanse and intimacy that I hope to capture with my work.

         I have limited the pieces in this exhibition to tales off the coast of Long Island. When I tell people I dive locally as well as elsewhere, the common replies center on how boring it is to dive here. It’s true that the views are less tropical—and yes, I did have to hold onto my buddy once in order not to lose him to the low visibility despite being a foot away—but by centering-in on different moments, some of which could be found in the most simple of dives, I hope to show that there is awe in any place there is an ocean.

      In Submerged, I create the journey of a dive’s descent with each image, including moments that speak to me, stories I remember, and different glimpses of the world beneath the waves. I recreate the immense and private quality by either emphasizing or restricting color, detail, and size, so that each piece maintains its interest but does not become overwhelming.

      A large part of the thought process in all the works in the exhibition was how to share these experiences without over-articulating the work. Even in real life, when diving, all of the views can be very overwhelming, especially when there is something visually interesting to see several places at once. I didn’t want the pieces to look like an advertisement for a diving location. I decided to deal with this issue differently depending on the medium I used, considering what both printmaking and painting have to offer, such as their different capabilities in color, size, texture, and line work. This was a decision present in each painting and print I made.

       I will present the paintings in their intended order. Each painting is associated with a certain depth in the water. Because of this, the order will give context and narrative to the painting portion of the exhibition.

      The first image of the series, Glancing Up represents the immediate view of the surface when descending. A diver is supposed to look up while ascending, to watch for boats, but a glance up during descent is my little habit to watch the distortion of the sky as the ripples and the waves take over. For me, this is the moment where I begin to feel absorbed into a private world.

      Staying true to the filtering-out of light, the images become darker as the series progresses.  Glancing Up is the lightest in the series. I also stay true to colors that are able to be found in each depth. I use a bit of orange on the rocks in the following painting, The Current, as this color can still be seen at the intended depth. However, the colors with the longer wavelengths, such as red and orange, are purposefully avoided as the depth increases.

      Based on my experiences diving under the Ponquogue Bridge, The Current shows the motion of a strong current in action. Despite the stirred-up water and lack of clear image, I was captured by the world moving around me. Instead of filling in the details of the growth on the pole and the different kinds of life and objects filling the space, I let the expression of the lack of visibility and the feeling of the current be the focus.

      Breath shows one of the most common views I notice while I am descending. With relatively little to do besides monitoring air and depth, I enjoy watching the intricate patterns of my dive-buddy’s breath. I freeze the moment in time and emphasize the buoyant upward movement, which I hope allows the viewer to be captivated and immersed in the scene the same way I am when I dive.

      I followed a rope down to the bottom for the deeper dives. I recall one time feeling seasick from the boat. During the dive, I watched the rope as I descended, and surprisingly found I felt better as it guided me lower. I remember the rope with great clarity, as it was nearly the only thing to look at, and my only connection to the surface, so I made the rope stand out clearly from the water when I painted Lifeline.

        The Wreck is inspired by the “Reliable,” a man-made reef off the southern coast of Long Island. As the deepest part of this dive, it is the darkest. The boat contains intricate growth and life, despite being a seemingly abandoned man-made structure. I capture a section of it, and use the large canvas size and the detail of the life growing on the boat that flows in the water to express the captivating scene.

      As mentioned, it is the darkest of the paintings. It is painted as one would see it at that depth. If a flashlight were to be pointed at the shipwreck, the colors would include much more red and brown. The green is a result of the visibility and colors available at that depth, as the colors with the longest wavelengths filter out first. It was important to me to stay true to this aspect of the experience, which is why all of the boat is tinted green, despite the true color in unfiltered light being quite different.

      All of my paintings are medium to large, ranging from 26 x 26 inches to 40 x 54 inches, so that the images and views in my paintings would be either life-sized or very close to life-sized. I wanted to give the viewer the feeling of looking out at the expanse. I also wanted to make use of the vibrant color options and fluid brushstroke texture that oil paint has to offer. I decided to be careful with the objects and how much of the scene I chose to depict in the paintings because I wanted to utilize the specifically sized canvases, more vibrant color, and some texture. I focused on expressing the experience more than articulating the exact detail of what I saw in many cases. This is why in The Current, for example, I painted the rocks and the pole in the background to indicate that it was hard to see into the distance; this is also why the things growing on the rocks weren’t in sharp focus. I also limited the full view. That is why in Breath, the bubbles are visible, but the diver who is actually the one breathing out the bubbles is omitted. That’s also why The Wreck is limited to the front top portion of the boat, which was a relatively small section of the ship. It also doesn’t necessarily read as a boat shape with what is given in the image, which allows for a bit of mystery. In Glancing Up, I attempted to focus mainly on the experience of looking up and the light that came through versus the exact ripples, bubbles, and clouds from above that I may see. Overall, I avoided exacting detail and having more than one or two main objects in order to let the expression in the color and texture be the focus.

        I took a different direction for the prints. They are relatively smaller in size, and for the most part, they are limited in color. I took this opportunity to focus on the detail in the intricate sea life and structures and I broadened the view of the images to take in more of the scene. I find printmaking to have great potential for detail, and that was a characteristic that I wanted to employ in my prints. For example, In the Ship includes a lot of detail in both the boat and the fish. It also allows a much wider view of the boat. This offers a different perspective of the same wreck that allows the viewer to understand the entire structure better. In the painting, The Wreck, the viewer sees what a diver sees in a single instance. In contrast, in the print In the Ship, the viewer gets the full view of what might be seen during all the time spent in that area of the wreck – a condensation of elapsed time.

      In the Ship shows the inside of the “Reliable” as I remember it as we swam through the interior. I emphasized the detail and the life that hangs around within the wreck. I added watercolor to add context and draw the viewer into a new world; the addition of the blue background helps locate the ship underwater, and the green tint on the walls gives the feeling of the growth there.

      Shifting also allows a great deal of detail in depicting the fish.

      There was a certain group of fish that would turn in unison as they swam together. A sudden movement echoed back by others in the school would show how far their group extended into the distance. I used the Chine Collé technique, where a thinner paper is glued to the backing paper, to help enhance the motion of the fish and of the water with the curving lines embedded in the thin paper. The two different colors of the print originate from having two plexi glass plates with different fish carved into them. This was done to express the crowded nature of the group by emphasizing the different layers of fish present in the single line.

      Another significant part of my process while printmaking was deciding what technique and what color to use. There were a few prints where I thought doing something special (watercolor, chine collé, etc.,) specifically added to the experience of the print. However, for a couple I decided to use a simple but strong black ink on a slightly blue paper because I thought the simplicity in the style allowed the imagery to come through better.

      Deep Gaze is a self-portrait. It connects the viewer to the eyes of the person (in this case, the artist), emphasizing the visual connection between people underwater, which is really the only human connection possible while diving.

      You’re Not Supposed to be Here shows a story of the time my dive-buddy and I discovered how deep cormorants can dive when, to our surprise, one came shooting toward us at around 20 feet down. I showed the trajectory of this bird as it swooped around.

      In Into Focus, the process of making the print became an important part of the story as well, leading to a triptych of images.

       In this triptych I show how I interpret approaching things below me in the water. There is absolutely nothing to see until, suddenly, there is a blurry shape right before you. The detail comes last, when you realize you’re in front of a boat. I used different Intaglio processes, such as etching, aquatint, and mezzotint for each print in the Into Focus series. By using aquatint and leaving the copper plate in the acid for different amounts of time, I changed the image from part I to part II. Then, I used aquatint on the image one more time to make it darker and began to mezzotint by scraping in lighter areas to get more images. For the finest detail, I used a fine-tipped white inked pen. This represents how a single scene gets darker and more detailed as you get closer to the object at depth.

      Because I approached these two mediums in these different ways, I wound up with a mix of the illustrative and the conceptual that together encompassed my experiences diving.

      At many points this year, before I was able to create this exhibition, I found myself planning out prints and paintings underwater, while in the process of a dive. I’d even occasionally write little notes on my slate so I wouldn’t forget a subject that I wanted to turn into art. The questions about how I can combine the arts and sciences don’t particularly surprise me, but I find that I’ve been combining them in my mind for quite some time, and that they are not so divorced from one another. This semester, I’ve dived as an artist, planning out new projects underwater, and made art as a diver, learning all the little ways the physics of water can affect what is perceived. I think the melding of these different worlds was required and fitting. I convey both the wide, immense quality and, the smaller, more private quality of my experience underwater, which are also two contrasting ideas coexisting. The careful observation required of me as a scientific diver is always augmented by seeing the underwater world with an artistic eye.