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photo by Styrous®
One of the many knockout works in the exhibition Night Vision, at the Gray Loft Gallery in Oakland, is A Mass of Winners by Vita Hewitt.
The piece is comprised of thousands, if not millions of the skeletons of tiny, free floating, ocean surface jelly fish called Velella. Hewitt has them brilliantly mounted and back-lit so the beauty of the creatures are shown at their best.
Vita Hewitt ~ A Mass of Winners detail
detail photo by Styrous®
This small cnidarian is part of a specialised ocean surface community that includes the better-known cnidarian siphonophore, the Portuguese man o' war. Each apparent individual is a hydroid colony, and most are less than
about 7 cm long. They are usually deep blue in color . . .
. . . the blue pigment is actually a protection against radiation from the sun but their most
obvious feature is a small stiff, transparent and colorless sail that catches the wind and propels
them over the surface of the sea.
Velella velella lives in warm and temperate waters in all the world's oceans. Under certain wind conditions, they
may be stranded by the thousand on beaches.
I have seen this happen on the shoreline of San Francisco and down the peninsula.
photographer unknown
Once the Velella have died, the blue fades and the skeletons that are left are almost colorless and transparent.
dead Velella
photographer unknown
photographer unknown
Night Vision will run until September 3, 2022, so you have three weeks for the opportunity to see these amazing creatures, the exhibition and all the other amazing work that is in it.
Night Vision was curated by Isaac Jasper Amala who will be showing his work as
well as other artists: Llane Alexis, Abel Soto Díaz, Esther Hilsenrad, Mariana Varela, DJ Whelan Tom White and Caleb Yono.
Gray Loft Gallery
2889 Ford Street
Third Floor
Oakland CA
94601
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
Awesome Ocean ~ Velella: Under Water and Upside Down
Deep Marine Scenes ~ By-the-Wind Sailor (Velella)
One World, One Ocean ~ Blue Zoo: Velella
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