These photographs explore what happens after wild oysters die in the English Channel, and their discarded shells are re-purposed, becoming canvasses for the ocean’s creative energy. Over many years, an immeasurably slow transformation takes place out of sight, at the bottom of the ocean, where seawater’s relentless ebb and flow erodes them into startling pieces of aquatic art — aged, shaped and colourised by the combined forces of water, wind, sun and moon. Their beauty is in their decay. Their deterioration is their perfection.
The images were taken along the Eastbourne coast, southern England, while the shells were submerged within the shallows amongst the shingle and seaweed. The images were shot very simply, using an old iPhone 7 and natural light. None have been retouched. Captured within the fast-moving gullies of seawater, the pictures record the movement of the water as it rushes over the shells. The action metamorphosed them from figuration to abstraction as the seawater’s “liquid lens”, refracted the colours and distorted and magnified the shapes. Some were completely abstracted, the original forms lost within a blur of colour and motion and disruption. A secret aesthetic dimension had suddenly opened — a liquified portal into an alternate realm.
