Ghost Nets Series

The ‘Ghost Net Series’ uses large sheets of natural mica that are from a Tennesse Mica mine. In this series, I started using the mica as a painting surface. Washes of acrylic are flowed over the mica sheets that have actual objects such as gill and fish netting are placed on the surface. After the surface dries, I start brushing acrylic paint and mixing ‘Golden’ brand ‘flow paint’ to create the composition. Each painting has betweem than 60-80 layers of acrylic paint. Upon completetion, the actual objects are removed from the surface revealing the many layers od colors and texture. I return to the surface scrapping to reveal the mica surface, a pentimento, trace of earlier layers revealing a push and pull between the transparent mica suface and the paint. My color choices relates to the netting caught on sandy and rocky substraits. Opaque whites and tans refer to the gillnetting caught on the ocean bottoms. The transluent mica gives the apparence of transparent water, and the irridecences invokes the shimmer of the sea.

The title ‘Ghost Net’ refers to the presence of gillnetting and fluorocarbon, ‘long lines’, that are used for fishing the coastal waters in the Sea of Cortez. Gillnetting is composed of fabric mesh attached to a lead line and float lines that stretch for miles behind ‘Milling Ships.’ The banned nets invariably ensnare endangered porpoises, threated or special-concerned species and unintended marine life. The drifting gillnets are sometimes caught on rocky substraits leaving the marine life ensnared.