Santa Fe New Mexico

Born from the Sea

A baby sleeps peacefully in his crib-shell on the coast of the ocean. Both the shell and the baby constitute part of the life-giving World Ocean. Researchers, who explore the origin of life on Earth, suppose that life emerged billions of years ago in shallow seawater.

One can speak of the origin of the baby who found himself on the deserted beach, however, the picture is in poetic alignment with other metaphorical pictures painted by the artist. “The Shell,” an early piece in which the feminine and masculine elements are combined into a single whole, perhaps represents the baby’s parents. And, since the Ocean was the foremother of all life, this assumption is close to the artist’s goal.

The ocean has always served as a source of inspiration for artists and writers around the world. Poetic phrases in the great book “Moby-Dick” by Herman Melville are astonishing:

“There is, one knows not what mystery about this sea, whose gently… stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath… All that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberous in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness.” (Chapter 111, The Pacific)

And further:

“Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed… sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled… thinking of the masculine sea.” (Chapter 132, The Symphony)