‘Radical Seafaring’ Highlights A Delicate Resource At The Parrish Art Museum

Sea change. Oceans, rivers, streams and canals are lucid threads of time with no memory. Everyone is intimately connected to water, flowing. Bodies of water are the heartbeat and arteries that spiral, caressing the planet. Droplets, ripped from ocean swells at night, quench parched granulated sands in the morning. Water is vital, and the emergence of caring for this delicate resource is the centerpiece of the “Radical Seafaring” exhibition taking place at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill.

Land art, a movement started in the late 1960s also known as Earth art, was a result of artists getting out of their studios and creating works of art integrating a natural setting. One of the most famous pieces to emerge from the movement was 1970’s “Spiral Jetty” by Robert Smithson, created from an amalgam of organic materials stretching 1,500 feet long and coiling into itself out into Utah’s Great Salt Lake basin.

Since then the movement has evolved, embracing a new generation of environmentally conscious artists.

“Considering the fact that we are surrounded by various bodies of water here on the East End—not only the ocean, but fragile tributaries, swamps and bogs that support a wide array of plant and animal life—I thought this exhibition would be the perfect conduit, bringing attention to how important it is for all of us to see beyond the recreational aspects of our waterways,” said Andrea Grover, the Parrish curator of special projects.

Contributing artist Courtney M. Leonard is a member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation—Shinnecock meaning, “people of the stony shore.” Her piece “Breach #2” is a striking assembly of hand-glazed ceramic sperm whale teeth on a wood pallet. The artwork represents both the cultural and spiritual significance of the whale to the Shinnecock, and the overfishing of a finite resource.

“I think creatively through my dreams,” Ms. Leonard said, “and the next day I respond to what was visually repeated to me in my dreams. It’s almost like our traditional ‘Stomp Dance,’ where the leader of the dance calls out during the dance, and we respond back. So, I listen to the call in my dreams, and respond through my art in the morning. That’s my process.”

One of the most powerful pieces in the exhibition is Mark Dion’s “Cabinet of Marine Debris.” The massive cabinet is stunning with its rhythmic and colorful arrangement of “sea junk.”

The sight of candy wrappers, plastic bottles, and a whole host of unwelcome plastic and latex garbage floating in the ocean and waterways serves as a constant reminder that people need to be proactive and vigilant in keeping the land and water clean.

At its core this exhibition is nothing short of breathtaking thanks to Ms. Grover’s exhaustive passion and vision for the project, which has been in the making for over a decade, and indeed much longer. Ms. Grover is a direct descendant—on her father’s side—of Peregrine White, who was born in Plymouth Harbor aboard one of the most famous radical seafaring voyages, the Mayflower.

The exhibition focuses on four major components: “Exploration,” the necessity for artists to stretch boundaries combining aspects of the natural world and landscape into their art; “Liberation,” a chance for artists to create a new Utopian world-vision showcasing the intimate interaction they have with all things organic, using water and land as inspirational guides; “Speculation,” inventive and radical works, with an eye on conservation; and “Fieldwork,” hands-on, methodological intelligence gathering about the environment.

Embodying “Speculation” are vessels made from a mish-mosh of recycled and repurposed materials, demonstrating how life might one day be for populations living in flood-prone, low-lying areas. Mononymous artist Swoon’s “Hickory” looks more like a theatrical stage than a boat. A floating micro-house farm boat equipped with livestock and fresh produce is the main focus of artist Mary Mattingly’s ambitious work “WetLand.”

Demonstrating “Fieldwork,” artist and passionate surfer Scott Bluedorn has taken to the water, visiting government and privately owned islands to create his work. He is a true naturalist. Growing up in East Hampton, he said, he’s always been fascinated by the interaction between ocean and shoreline, the tides and the ephemeral effects the moon has playing galactic puppet master over the world’s oceans.

Mr. Bluedorn’s meticulous drawings in his “Forbidden Islands” series come from a sense of growing up on an island, and that “islands” can hold their own sense of mystery and beauty. “The fact that we are all islands to a certain extent,” Mr. Bluedorn mused, “all of us needing various components to live and sustain ourselves seemed a natural segue for me to capture wildlife, and in fact the islands themselves sitting off the coast from the mainland.”

Brooklyn artist Dylan Gauthier has created his own portal into the importance of New York City’s waterways by creating boats made out of recycled paper. At first blush, a paper boat might not be the best idea, but as Mr. Gauthier explained, “Every boat has a story. There is a preciousness about them, and the boats I build with other artists are very do-it-yourself vessels.”

Layers upon layers of paper with environmentally safe glue are molded around an existing boat shell. When the mold is set and cast, the boats are ready for use.

Coming over on the second voyage of the Mayflower was Greenport artist Michael Combs’s family. “Growing up out here on the East End, I worked on the water with the other generational baymen in my family, and I’m the first in that long lineage who decided not to continue in their path,” Mr. Combs said. “I’m a devout conservationist, and although I spent many years taking from the water, my goal through my art is to bring awareness about what is going on below the water line, and even more so, what is going on with our drinking water, and the effects sewage is having on that.

“There have been multiple fish kill-offs over the years out here, which have been directly linked to too much nitrogen in the water, which suffocate fish and is the result from over population, and pollution,” he added.

Provocative, not only in its design, but in name as well, Mr. Combs’s piece “Daisy Chain” features a single-line of horseshoe crabs suggestively connected with lily flowers—a symbol often associated with death.

“I consider ‘Daisy Chain’ an environmental funeral bouquet that takes the form of a casket,” Mr. Combs said. Painted all white and hand-carved out of basswood and cedar, “Daisy Chain” evokes a sense of environmental foreboding. “I don’t want to sound alarmist, but the time has come, I believe, to pay closer attention to what is so obvious: taking care of our collective ecosystem, not only for us, but for future generations,” he said. “We’ll never get it one hundred percent right, but we have to start, and we have to start now.”

The “Radical Seafaring” exhibition at the Parrish runs through July 24. Artist Mary Mattingly’s vessel, “WetLand,” will be docked in Sag Harbor from June 9 to 23. Visitors are encouraged.

For more information about the exhibition and the artists represented, visit parrishart.org or call (631) 283-2118.