All images are detail shots of the work on display at the NC Aquarium.
FROM :
The exhibit, “Fish Tails,” features the work of Morehead City artist Nancy Gorr, on show now through April 7.
Gorr uses the ancient Japanese technique of gyotaku (pronounced gee-oh-tah-koo), which means “fish rubbing.” The artist carefully applies paint to a real fish, covers the paint with handmade rice paper and then rubs to create an impression. She learned the fish-printing technique 22 years ago when she took a gyotaku class at the Aquarium.
“I have a love of fishing and I really have a love of our environment,” said Gorr. “I think every fish is fascinating, and I want the fish prints to look as natural as possible.”
Since beginning her gyotaku work, Gorr has gone on to give gyotaku demonstrations in schools and at the Aquarium. Gorr also created the 1995 North Carolina Seafood Festival Commemorative poster using the technique.
In the show, watercolor and ink prints include intricate flounder, rainbow-colored dolphin fish, squid, pompano and octopus.
I am shamelessly promoting my friend, Nancy Gorr. She is a dear friend and a wonderful watercolor and oil painter. Her work always inspires and delights me. You can see more of her work, learn more about Gyotaku, or purchase her work here:
http://www.nancygorr.freeyellow.com/whatisgyotaku.htm
or
http://www.carolinaartiststudio.com/NancyGorr.html
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Comments
She has done large bill fish from local tournaments.
She is awesome.
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ePriddy, these are simply, simply beautiful! thank you for sharing them with us.
While looking at the paintings, I kept wondering how they were done. Amazing! Who knew!
Rate.
It is using fresh sea creatures. And I have always had minor ethical twinges about it, but on further research into how she comes to aquire her specimens and how she treats them, I have decided that it is ok.
The direct printing from the animal itself is a form of preservation including size and color information, as she colors them accurately.
Her dolphin fish are amazingly beautiful and colorful. As soon as they are killed, their color begins to fade. The octopus above change color constantly. And the flounder really are brown.
Her work is amazing and she is an amazing individual. I would gush further, but I am going to show her the comments and I don't want to seem like a complete loon.
But I think she deserves to have her work seen.
I think all fish seem melancholy. I spend a good deal of time at the aquarium with Logan, and I find the fish less than happy, mostly kind of anxious or bored.
Perhaps life in the wild is more exciting for them. Maybe her painting of their eyes (which do not print well) reflects the idea that they had to die to be part ofher work.
Or maybe it is the muted colors.
Then agian, it could just be monday.
I mostly paint insects and birds, which are almost always a little crazed and active, at least when I paint them. I will post a painting of fish sometime and it will make you laugh!
Crazy Fish
I do not see fish with her kind hearted eyes.
I looked at the other sites you linked to, and her still life pictures of the vases of flowers are really excellent. The use of light and the composition is perfect.
I like the way the dogwood (I think the white flowers are dogwood, but don't shoot me if they are not!) picture is soft and the eye is drawn to the center and slightly down so that the vase itself takes on importance. It would be commonplace to draw the white flowers in bright light and to not explore the beauty of the more muted lighting and the beauty of the flowers in that particular vase that she captures here.
The other flower painting has many more colors but the same technique is employed, only more dramatically, as the eye is drawn quickly to the pansies in front and the flowers in back are intentionally out of focus, exactly as your own eye would capture it if you were drawn to concentrate on the pansies.
Tell your friend, Nancy, that I really enjoyed her work.
Monte
And I too like the squid - don't often see them much in art.