Reflection

Reflection

"Child of the Sea" is how I would personify our vast and deep oceans. I was inspired by paintings of tragedies: "Medea," for example, depicts a mother killing her children in a terrible, yet beautifully depicted way. This is how I wanted to portray the dying creatures and coral reefs. While oceans may be billions of years old, compared to the extent of the world, they are still young. We must learn to protect them, which shelter such beauty and promise, the same way we protect our children. Throughout past decades, climate change has collapsed whole ecosystems. While drawing this, I’ve learned just how dangerous it is, not only for ecosystems, but for our fisheries as well. Ozone depletion has killed shrimp and krill, starving Arctic whales, and rising acidity has bleached whole coral reefs, homes to millions of coral, fish, clams, sea turtles, sponges, etc. This is ultimately the problem that I want to address. By drawing the ocean's body using sea creatures and coral, I wanted to depict how these coral ecosystems have been depleted since coral bleaching was first reported in the 1990s. Large, dead coral portrays the looming death over the last living reefs. The ocean can heal eventually. Seeing young people advocating gives me hope that there will be change in the future. But if we want to save our current reefs for future generations, it’s crucial to understand and educate others, and in doing so, create an environment that is more willing to change.