Boundary 6. 24”x24” Oil on canvas. 2021

I have a new series of paintings just in time for spring! I’ve named it the Boundary Series and they come from the idea of a quadrat, a square that marine ecologists use to mark off a square on the beach or intertidal. They count all of the animals or plants found within the square and do some math to calculate species diversity.

I wondered what it would be like to drop a quadrat square in the ocean. Oceanographers simplify the ocean into squares and cubes for study, but it’s hard to imagine one square meter of water because water is always moving. What if your square misses the thing you want to measure? Is it possible to impose rigid boundaries on something fluid and ephemeral?