Below the Surface
A collaboration between artists & Scientists
Background artwork: “Coastal Surface: Community” — Heather E. Stivison
“Marine Heatwaves” — Deb Ehrens
Below the Surface is a collaboration between Art League RI (ALRI) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). This exhibition features artwork made by eleven artist-scientist teams composed of members from the two organizations. In each team, the artist and scientist have worked together to create art that focuses on some aspect of ocean science that is related to the research or interests of the scientist(s).
Curious about the artist-scientist teams behind Below the Surface? Find out more on the Artists & Scientists page.
PROJECTS
Background artwork: “Forms of Every Breath You Take 2 (E. Huxleyi Bloom) Detail” — Saberah Malik
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Created by Claire Marschak & Nina Whitney, PhD
Arctica Islandica is a large-scale painted relief sculpture that shows the immense importance of the longevity of ocean quahogs and their in role in marine science.
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Created by Keith Prue & Suzanna Clark, PhD
Bloom comprises images from Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park in Maine, a location that sources much of the research specimens being studied.
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Created by Kathy Hodge & Chrissy Hernandez, PhD
Drifters is a series of works that explores the beauty of plankton, microscopic organisms that populate our oceans.
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Created by Saberah Malik & Max Jahns
Forms of Every Breath You Take explores the morphology of phytoplankton through a three-dimensional, hanging composition of molded and dyed fabrics.
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Created by Hong Xu, PhD & Caroline Ummenhofer, PhD
From Sea Salt to Rainfall shows that ocean properties can help predict rainfall on land.
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Created by Deb Ehrens, Svenja Ryan, PhD, & Caroline Ummenhofer, PhD
Marine Heatwaves is a series of spinning, spiral fabric shapes that echo rotating warm core rings.
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Created by Marcy Cohen & Sujata Murty, PhD
Oceans of Time is a series of composites that include elements from Sujata’s dives in the Indonesian seas and Pacific Ocean.
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Created by Laurie Kaplowitz & Jennifer Kenyon, PhD
Pursuit and Decay is a graphic story depicting the journey of carbon from the atmosphere to the deep ocean.
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Created by Janine Wong & Jing He
Submesoscale Soup illustrates the natural and the technological/analytical components to science research.
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Created by Ellen Biegert & Larry J. Pratt, PhD
Turbulence takes the ocean’s movement and interprets the commotion through texture, rhythm, and pattern.
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Created by Heather E. Stivison & Noah Paul Germolus
Visualizing the Unseen: Cellular Metabolites in Ocean Ecology is a series of paintings that represents some of the ocean’s diverse ecological zones.
SPONSORS
This program is supported in part by a grant from the Falmouth Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency. Funding has also been provided by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Center for Marine and Environmental Radioactivity, the Council for the Arts at MIT, and the MIT Office of Graduate Education.
