Josephine Turalba
Polysea, 2026
acrylic on canvas, leather, grommets and 12-gauge brass bullet heads
90 x 120 x 4.5 cm
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Power emerges quietly, moving through the creatures and the landscape alike. The works extend from the artist’s imagination of underwater hybrid creatures, inspired by her research of waters marked by...
Power emerges quietly, moving through the creatures and the landscape alike. The works extend from the artist’s imagination of underwater hybrid creatures, inspired by her research of waters marked by competing claims and a hydrofeminist approach to power and care in these environments. These creatures echo human political tensions, witnessing disputes over their oceans and sometimes internalizing them, morphing into military or regulatory shapes. With the canvas as the artist’s playground, the underwater worlds she creates reflect human ambition and authority.
These creatures act as simple mirrors to human interventions; creating borders, enforcing land ownership, policing populations, and performing the motions of justice. Lacking the sophistication and the language of humans, they present play-like scenes; shrimps construct an underwater wall, crabs and lobsters capture plankton, a nudibranch presides over a court house. In the irony of their crude mimicry they pose a question of the necessity and justification for such human actions.
Leather, grommets, and brass bullet heads not only create visual vibrancy but also reinforce this irony through their juxtoposition of softness and hardness. Across the series, conquest is not dramatic, rather subtly persists, embedded in both the material and the motion of the underwater realm.
These creatures act as simple mirrors to human interventions; creating borders, enforcing land ownership, policing populations, and performing the motions of justice. Lacking the sophistication and the language of humans, they present play-like scenes; shrimps construct an underwater wall, crabs and lobsters capture plankton, a nudibranch presides over a court house. In the irony of their crude mimicry they pose a question of the necessity and justification for such human actions.
Leather, grommets, and brass bullet heads not only create visual vibrancy but also reinforce this irony through their juxtoposition of softness and hardness. Across the series, conquest is not dramatic, rather subtly persists, embedded in both the material and the motion of the underwater realm.