Ecolo-Art: From A Sharks Mouth to Van Gogh's Ear

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Aquart  2009  is the world’s only underwater art exhibition of paintings. There exists, somewhere between Atlantis and Davy Jones Locker,  this unlikely venue for the viewing of modern art. However, Aquart  is neither mythical or idiomatic .Aquart is a forerunner in an artistic movement combining modern art and ecological sensibility. Call it submersive not subversive. Underwater not underground. It is ecolo-art.  Art for arts sake and  the well being of the  mysterious  Greenland Shark.

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Flintkote is the name  of an  abandoned water filled quarry basin situated just beyond the municipality of Thetford Mines,Quebec. The basin encompasses two square miles and descends to 160 feet at maximum depth. Flintkote is a mecca for underwater divers and the orginal concept was initiated and  directed by scuba enthusiast  and artist Charlene Chouinard. The exhibition layout for Aquart contains three levels of art with the deepest paintings  at 100 feet from surface. There are 200 art works on display as well as some permanent iron and steel sculptures.

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The Flintkote water is stagnant, and the absence of current results in clear underwater visibility to view the canvasses.

Thirty percent of Aquart art sale proceeds are donated to GEERG Canada. GEERG is a research organization engaged in the study and preservation  of sharks. In particular, the rare and unpredictable Greenland Shark. Called ”Skalugsuak” by the Inuit, the Greenland is the most northern dwelling shark. This species  can live at depths of a half mile in Summer. A length of seven yards long from fin to snout are not  uncommon for a mature Greenland. Also called the ”Gurry” shark, their basic diet consists of fish and seals but their stomachs have been found to contain remains of  reindeer, horses and polar bears.

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 Inuit tradition maintains the Greenland as being benign to humans. However, researchers have witnessed a Greenland snatching and devouring a caribou from the waters edge. These sharks can be cannibalistic and can live to two hundred years old.

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Like the  threatened Greenland, The arts and artists often cope with a precarious existence, an existential engagement with an artistic eco-system of its own. The state of the arts often vascillates  between the endangered list and near extinction, metaphorically 20,000 leagues under the sea. Did Van-Gogh  wilfully have his ear lopped off as a sacrifice to the Gods of Art in a pact with Gaugin?  An induced, profound transdescent artistic experience?  

Steve St-Pierre Artist

Aquart features a number of large sculptures some of which are of sea deity Poisedonian inspiration and dimension. Aquart artistic director Steve St. Pierre asserts there is no comparable activity of this kind with the exception of an underwater sculpture park based in London. Aquart is unique in its genre.

Sculpture Alain Racine

The event takes place over the weekend of  July 31- August 2. GEERG has supplied an actual shark cage for the exhibition as a precautionary measure in the event the demons of Nemo make an appearance.

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