Reef Scenes

I love love love diving on reefs and taking pictures and then painting reef scenes. Most of these photo references I used were taken just north of Elbow Cay in the Bahamas.
Also, the paintings are QUITE LARGE. Pretty hard to put a scene like this on a tiny canvas.

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  • Night Dive

    Night Dive

    Price range: $ 540.00 through $ 24,000.00

    38×54″ · Acrylic on linen · pages 26–27

    When the sun disappears, the reef does not sleep. It shifts into another reality, one rarely seen by human eyes. Octopuses unfurl. Seahorses drift upright. Turtles slip silently between corals. Schools of fish shimmer like sparks in black water.

    In Night Dive, the composition itself moves like the ocean does. Forms loop and orbit, pulling the eye in arcs before returning to the gravitational heart of the piece: the octopus.

    Colors glow as if lit from within. Yellows and greens suggest bioluminescence. Reds and oranges pulse with nocturnal energy. Deep blues open into shadow.

    This is not a daytime reef. It is a hidden world, alive with motion and mystery, that exists only after dark.

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  • She'll Just Dream Them All Back

    She’ll Just Dream Them All Back

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 3,100.00

    Triptych — three canvases, 30×30″ each (30×90″ overall) · Acrylic on linen · pages 38–39

    The reefs around Elbow Cay today are very different from the first time I laid eyes on them, twenty-five years ago.

    This triptych started with three white canvases. I just painted reefs and fish and big lobsters and sea fans the way I remembered them — vivid, full, alive. They hang over our bed now, and sometimes I dream about being underwater, where the colors and creatures and coral are exactly as I remember them.

    Ellen Bass’ “How to Apologize” is not really about apologies. It is about grief, and permission, and the audacity of hope. She writes about building a boat, and dreaming back everything in one night.

    This triptych is that night.

    It’s permitted

    to receive solace for whatever you did

    or didn’t do, pitiful, beautiful

    human…

    So you’ll need a boat. You could rent or buy,

    but, for the sake of repairing the world,

    build your own…

    …In one night

    we could dream back everything lost.

    …There is much to fear as a creature

    caught in time, but this

    is safe. You need no defense. This

    is just another way to know

    you are alive.

    — “How to Apologize,” by Ellen Bass (fragments). Used with permission of the author. Published in The New Yorker.

    Gallery wrapped Giclees can be purchased separately or together. This COULD be confusing….  the square sizes listed would be one THIRD of the complete piece.  (Your choice!)  The COMPLETE piece is either sold as ONE BIG STRETCHED CANVAS, or THREE INDIVIDUAL SQUARES.  Kind of overwhelming, so Contact Kim for all the multitude of ways you can purchase and display this painting.  Thanks!

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  • Elk Crossing

    Elk Crossing

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 3,250.00

    Quite the busy intersection of Elk and Angel I might point out.  Over forty critters in this one.  Loved loved loved painting it!

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  • The Ocean Reef

    The Ocean Reef

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 1,650.00

    11 foot by 4 1/2 foot commission of an ocean reef, viewed from the bottom.  Tons of fish and other sea creatures. Lots of CROPS if you don’t want a tall vertical. Giclees are $1 per square inch, please EMAIL ME for different options.  Click on the ARTS BLOG tab above to read a three part essay on the journey of this painting.

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  • Room with a View

    Room with a View

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 3,300.00

    From the point of view of inside some rocks, looking out where the light is shining.  All images came from Elbow Cay reef from last spring.

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  • Company Picnic

    Company Picnic

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 1,490.00

    I took this shot on the reef just above Elbow Cay.  I love all these little fishies swimming around the soft coral.  Can you see the pair of juvenile parrotfish?  

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  • Marriage of the High Hats

    Marriage of the High Hats

    Price range: $ 95.00 through $ 9,000.00
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