Juxtapoz Magazine – Camille Rose Garcia “Nereids of Mare Medusae” @ Roq La Rue, Seattle

Roq la Rue is pleased to welcome back one of the biggest artists in the Pop Surrealism movement, Camille Rose Garcia, for a solo clearly show this July. Her work is known for it is really enchanting “creepy cool” vintage cartoon like graphic design mixed with major commentary about sociopolitical themes, largely the environment and its destruction at mankind’s fingers. For this display, having said that, Garcia delves into a fantastical other-entire world guarded and guided by gorgeous nymph-like creatures and animals who reside in otherworldly seas, as a means of holding on to speculate as opposed to despair. The palette of this clearly show deviates from the preceding working day-glo spectrum she was discovering most just lately, to function washy pastels, like the inside of of a shell or the shifting translucent colors of abalone. Coral, drinking water serpents, and jellyfish populate aspiration-like lunar oceans, which are the domain of the Nereids, benevolent drinking water spirits.

“I think the human gatherings of the earlier few many years has left me stargazing and ocean wandering as a survival system. I simply cannot only make art about a dying earth, about a dying culture, when there is still so a lot mystery and awe inspiring attractiveness to expertise all close to us. My enchantment with ocean and star themes is greatly motivated by my ecosystem. I reside 20 minutes from the Pacific Ocean in California, and through the Pandemic I would get weekly ocean hikes with my mom, who life in a household overlooking the ocean that my grandfather designed.  It turned a supply of wonderful ease and comfort and solace  to be at the ocean selecting up shells and weird parts of driftwood, and I wondered about its electric power to enchant and relaxed individuals through difficult times.

For my solo show, “Nereids of Mare Medusae”, I was wondering of the ocean and of the stars, and then, of system, about oceans on other stars. I began to picture the oceans on other planets, as I remembered that Europa and Enceladus, (moons of Saturn and Jupiter) both equally have oceans within the moon, surrounded by a thick crust of ice. I looked to see if these oceans had names, but I couldn’t find any. I made the decision to identify the ocean inside Enceladus, a single of Saturns’ moons. I named it Mare Medusae, not just after Medusa, but after the gorgeous jellyfish drawings of Ernst Haeckel, who named the most attractive jellyfish he encountered immediately after his dead wife Anna. The Nereids are Greek ocean spirits, but compared with the Sirens, they are benevolent in character. The Nereids aren’t just pretty to look at however, they are fast paced executing things in that ocean inside of that moon orbiting Saturn. Potentially they build magical instruments and organic machines designed of shells and serpents, building a psychedelic universe with benevolent new music vibrations.” – Camille Rose Garcia