Pacific Series: Environmental Assemblages

By: artistlauralynch
Submitted: 02/17/2009

Red Skerrie Saver #2, 2002, © Laura Lynch | Found boat pieces on board, life saver, barbed wire, rope, and found signage | 49x42x6 inches | Photo: John Widmer

Red Skerrie Saver #2 is a construction of found boat parts and warning signs, inspired from a family trip to Ireland in 1996. There, I discovered that my family name "Lynch," means "descendant of Loingseach," meaning "mariner," from "long" meaning "ship or mariner." I also discovered the "red skerrie savers"--little red housings that hold lifesavers to throw out into the sea to swimmers in trouble--in a sweet little coastal town called Skerries, Ireland, along the Irish Sea. An Irish family living by the sea forbids their children to  play near the water because it is so heavily polluted with nuclear radioactive waste discharged daily by the British nuclear reprocessing plants.

The red skerrie is a reoccurring image in my Pacific Series. It is both a symbol of hope (salvation) for a future that is bright and beautiful for ongoing generations as well as a warning sign and reminder of how the entire human species might very well need to be saved one day from drowning in a sea of ignorance and greed.




Parrot Fish: Species Adaptation, Channel Islands Habitat, 2006/09, © Laura Lynch | Site-Specific Mixed Media Installation: Ventura Museum of Art | Found boat pieces, fiberglass, digital photo montage, transparencies mounted on surfboard shell and found seabird habitat signage, bullet casings & shells, tar & feathers, sail cloth, buoys, signage, mounted on boat decking base | 96x75x26 inches | Photo: Laura Lynch

This piece incorporates photographs of my trips to the Channel Islands, found objects gathered along the beaches (including a section of the old dock from Santa Cruz Island's Prisoner's Harbor), bullet casings from Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands, and photos of signage from Anacapa Island's "Sea Bird Habitat" digitally montaged and appropriated to include parrot fish images. This installation seeks to address the threat to air and water quality that plagues not just the islands' habitats, but the mainland's as well. The constant pollution on the islands is created by the oil industry's leaking tanks and emissions from their on and offshore processing plants, the cargo industry's diesel-burning ships and sewage-dumping vessels, as well as the islands' location being on the edge of the Pacific Missile Test Range.

 

Pacific Oil (triptych) 2001, © Laura Lynch | Found boat pieces, collage laser prints, tar, found image, mounted on oil-drenched boat piece | 60x110x6 inches. Photo: John Widmer



STOP! 2001, © Laura Lynch | Found stop sign with chains, tar from beach,boat sheathing, sand, laser prints of oil rigs, framed with boat pieces | 33x36x3.5 inches | Photo: John Widmer