Ascending. Acqua 4 Painting

Fish Shoal Tapestries I make large and intricate Tapestries inspired by the beauty of fish shoals' movement underwater. My background as a professional scuba diver working underwater for two decades gave me the inspiration. Since my very first dive, I’ve been fascinated observing the perfection of fish swimming together as one. I always wanted to represent with my art the harmonious dance of fish shoals; the visual swirling that magically traps the golden sunlight to be reflected on the fish scales is simply amazing. Turning Waste into Art For many years, I experimented with diverse media painting and drawing the fish shoals looking for the most accurate representation of their movement, until I found what has turned out to be the perfect material; used tyres. To create a tapestry, I start by collecting from tyre companies used inner tubes that would end up at landfills or worse, in the ocean. I wash the rubber and give it a gold patina using acrylics and oil paints. I then draw thousands of small fish before I cut them with scissors one by one. The base of the tapestries is a hand-ripped flax fabric with a layer of paint that serves as background of the shoals. I choose to use flax to give flexibility to the piece allowing it to move when it hangs, offering an ever-changing reflection of light on each fish as it moves. Then, I pin delicately one by one the hundreds and sometimes thousands of fish on the flax, creating the swerves and dance of the fish. Once the movement I want to reflect is set, I hand stitch each fish in its position. This “labour of love” as I call it, takes me weeks before I see the work of one tapestry finished.

Painting:Tapestry on Rubber

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:37.4 W x 38 H x 0.5 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.