The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum (SBMM) will show Aquean, an new exhibit exploring time, tides and transformation through the works of artists David Ellis and Larry Vigo, on view April 9-July 26.
A multimedia experience featuring photographs, paintings, prints, video, and mixed media, Aquean invites viewers to consider the sea as both subject and metaphor, reflecting on the delicate balance between permanence and loss along California’s coastlines.
What endures and what vanishes are inseparable, bound together by the rhythms of the ocean; the sea becomes a lens through which to consider time, change, and the fragile continuity of our coastal world, organizers said.
“Aquean is a collaboration that captures the constant movement of the sea as it recreates itself and everything it touches,” said Ellis. “It expresses the tension between the found beauty and powerful uncertainty of a relentless ecosystem. Many thanks to the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum for bringing Aquean to the public.”
Exhibit highlights focus on two major bodies of work by the artists:
Ellis’ Lobospheres: The Lost Souls of Point Lobos is a 20-year exploration that consists of abstract, impressionistic photographs of textures, silhouettes, and mythical figures discovered in the wave-carved rock forms of Point Lobos, California.
It is a celebration, an elegy, and a cautionary tale; an interpretive archive that captures its subliminal beauty, while preserving and documenting a landmark that may be changing with time.
Last June, selected photos from Lobospheres received top honors at the 24th Annual International Art Exchange exhibited at the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.
Vigon’s Flotsam & Jetsam is an expansive impression of the sea that includes paintings, large-scale prints, found objects, linocuts, video, and dimensional collages.
Vigon recalled that once, Picasso was asked what his paintings meant. Picasso said, “Do you ever know what the birds are singing? You don’t. But you listen to them anyway. So, sometimes with art, it is important just to look.”
Flotsam & Jetsam extends Vigon’s world-class artistic sensibilities. His decades of album cover design for artists like Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt — seen by hundreds of millions of people worldwide — landed him in the Album Cover Hall of Fame.
His commercial and logo identity work has helped build leadership brands for DreamWorks, Fandango, Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, and Epson.
His work also spans Broadway posters, advertising campaigns, magazines, and books, including his design for “The Red Book” by C.G. Jung, considered one of the most significant psychoanalytic publications of the last century.
“We are thrilled to bring together the vivid visions of David Ellis and Larry Vigon in Aquean,” said Emily Falke, SBMM curator/Director of Collections & Exhibits . “Their work captures the power and fragility of the ever-changing California coastline.
“In Aquean, the sea is more than a physical presence, it becomes a lens for time and change, reminding us that what endures and what vanishes are forever intertwined by the rhythms of the ocean.”
For details, visit sbmm.org.