BENEATH PRIMAL WAVES

 

Beneath Primal Waves, acrylic on canvas, 2022. 20" X 16" 

The painting is based on a postcard drawn by the artist in 2010. It depicts the spectacular marine life in the late Jurassic of Europe. At the time, the oceans were warmer than they are now and just like today sustained a variety of life.

The background of the painting is in a shallow sea, near to the coast. The sea floor is filled with sponges and crinoids, also known as sea lilies and are related to starfish. A myriad of unusual invertebrates swam there and have been preserved as fossils. The most notable invertebrates in the clear ancient sea are the ammonites - relatives of squid and cuttlefish with a coiled shell - and the belemnites - squid-like cephalopods with long, bullet-shaped shells. On the ocean floor are a pair of horseshoe crabs, a type of arthropod that existed long before dinosaurs evolved on land, and are still around today. The tiny shrimp-like creatures in the picture are Dollocaris, an ancient crustacean relative in the family Thylacocephala. Dollocaris is known for its well-preserved, large compound eyes, extremely large head and three pairs of long, grabbing claws to catch prey.

Vast shoals of fish also lived in the ancient sea. The herring-like fish in the painting are of the species Pholidophorus. The larger, predatory fish are Aspidorhynchus, a slender, fast-swimming fish with elongated jaws filled with teeth. The shark in the painting is Hybodus, a primitive form of shark with two spiny dorsal fins. Sharks have been patrolling the oceans more than 100 million years before dinosaurs appeared.

However, the highlight of the Jurassic seas were the marine reptiles. With features making them extremely suitable for life in the water, they have evolved into various forms to occupy several different roles in the underwater ecosystem. 

Plesiosaurs are long-necked marine reptiles that paddle in the water with powerful flippers, feeding on fish and cephalopods. The plesiosaur species depicted in the painting is Kimmerosaurus, which fossils were found in the Kimmeridge Clay Formation of England. Alongside the elegant, long-necked forms are the pliosaur family, which are larger, more compact and have shorter necks and longer jaws. Having sharp senses of smell, they occupy the apex predator role in the oceans of the Jurassic period. The species depicted in the top left is Liopleurodon, a massive predatory pliosaur from Europe which grew to the size of a great white shark. 

The other famous group of marine reptiles from the Jurassic are the ichthyosaurs, or "fish lizards", named for their fish-shaped bodies and dolphin-like heads. Due to their body shape, they swam by moving their body side to side like a fish does, sometimes bursting into high speeds in pursuit of its prey or when escaping from predators. The beak of some species of ichthyosaur are toothless while other species kept teeth, which are evidences of the difference in specialization in food selection between species. There are many species of ichthyosaur which lived in the Jurassic, and the species in the painting is Thalassodraco, which name translates to "sea dragon" in Greek, and had approximately 70 small teeth in its jaws. The species, discovered in England, was given its current name in 2020.

The original postcard (2010, 5" X 3.2")

Artist's notes

The artist has a fondness for the genre of paleoart, which is a genre which depicts prehistoric animals in their natural habitat according to scientific evidence. The artist also brings over the unity themes from most of his other artworks to build a scenery which gathers several species from the same time and place.