LIGHT IN THE TUNNEL
OIL ON CANVAS
14 x 18 INCHES
In the foreground, there is a gigantic shell-shaped bridge.
Corrugated seashell has long been not only a symbol of the water element, but also an attribute of female deities, and first of all Aphrodite.
Seashells attracted artists and audiences as early as in classical antiquity: they were a rather popular element in mosaic decorations.
In the famous painting The Birth of Venus by Botticelli Aphrodite is standing in a large seashell in the middle of the sea. Magnificent seashell specimens continued to draw the attention of artists in later periods: Henri Matisse in his Still Life with a Seashell on Black Marble contrasts the shell as a product of nature with inanimate objects – a chocolate pot, a cup, a jug.
The headlights of the cars shining against the dark background of the Shell Mount tunnel can be interpreted as the arrival of a new era of machinery, as the light of reason in the darkness of the “stone cold” nature.
An early painting by the artist Above the Sea Level has a similar idea, clearly dividing the upper, “conscious part” of the shell and the lower, “subconscious part” of it.
