Current in the Shadows

Ventura College New Media Gallery

March 2020 — October 2022

Seaweavings developed over six years ago in response to a little-known trend of the Victorian era: groups of women who collected seaweed along coastlines and documented their findings as visually appealing keepsakes and scientific catalogs. 

Captivated by the tactile qualities of seaweed and the process of collecting it, I gather the plant from local beaches and then experiment with different chemical and physical treatments in order to preserve their malleability and luminosity. I then attempt, through the processes available to me—be they stitching, weaving, gluing, or representation in graphite—to recreate the beauty I observed upon my initial discovery of the plants in their natural environment. The resulting work is a transplanted approximation of natural beauty limited by the realities of an unnatural environment. 

As the physical limits of the seaweed collide with memories of the found specimens, we experience dynamic relationship between beauty and decay. Piecing together found, organic matter in a foreign yet familiar context, Seaweavings present an ever-changing view of a captured moment that can never be fully recovered.