Re-Imagining Our Footprint: Namita Paul - Red Tide

Red Tide

12 x 12”, Acrylic on panel

Red Tide was made as a response to our rapidly changing planet. The phenomenon ‘red tide’ is caused by dinoflagellates, an interesting group of plankton that migrate vertically in the water, rising to the surface for photosynthesis and retreating a few meters below the surface as the evening approaches, only to rise back up the next morning. You might have seen this swarm in early spring or late summer in California and witnessed a red tide. Potentially toxic to shellfish and subsequently human populations, plankton blooms are not a new phenomenon but increasingly common due to rising temperatures. 

While the name of the work, Red Tide, refers to a specific phenomenon, the painting also reflects California’s skies during recent fires, that made me wonder if we had landed on the planet Mars.  The painting was made as a call to action, echoing the words of the song by the same name, by the Canadian band Rush, 

“Now is the time to make the time
While hope is still in sight
Let us not go gently
To the endless winter night”