Watching Our Water Ways

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Posts Tagged ‘Body painting’

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2014

The fish below is known as a fangtooth, a tropical fish found in the ocean up to 16,000 feet deep. Upon second glance, you will see a human eye and a chin and realize that you are looking at a very nice painting on a human head.

Anoplogaster cornuta, Fangtooth. Make up by Helena Jordana Skuhrovcov, Prague, Czech Republic. Photograph: Helena Dufková Photo courtesy of Bloom Association/LUSH
Anoplogaster cornuta, Fangtooth. Make up by Helena Jordana Skuhrovcov, Prague, Czech Republic. Photograph: Helena Dufková Photo courtesy of Bloom Association/LUSH

Anoplogaster cornuta, Fangtooth. Make up by Helena Jordana Skuhrovcov, Prague, Czech Republic. Photograph: Helena Dufková // Photo courtesy of Bloom Association/LUSH

The artist is Helena Jordana Skuhrovcov of the Czech Republic. She is one of several body painters who have joined the protest against deep-sea bottom trawling in Europe, a campaign sponsored by LUSH cosmetics and Bloom Association, a marine conservation group.

Each of the artists involved in the project has painted a different deep-sea creature to raise awareness about life in the deep ocean and to call upon European governments to ban deep-sea bottom trawling.

States a press release from the two organizations:

“The deep ocean is the largest habitat on the planet – teeming with all kinds of unique marine life including corals and sponges that live for hundreds to thousands of years. But deep-sea bottom trawlers are destroying them, dragging giant weighted nets, cables and steel plates more than 2 tonnes each across the ocean floor to catch a small number of low value fish…

“A successful ban would represent a momentous historical milestone in the fight to protect our deep ocean from unnecessary destruction. Deep-sea bottom trawling is a capital-intensive, fuel-greedy, subsidy-dependent fishing method that fails to yield positive economic results while destroying the natural habitat of European seas.”

Paragorgia, Bubblegum Coral. Make up by Maeva Coree, Paris, France. Photograph: Alexandre Faraci Photo courtesy of Bloom Assocation/LUSH
Paragorgia, Bubblegum Coral. Make up by Maeva Coree, Paris, France. Photograph: Alexandre Faraci Photo courtesy of Bloom Assocation/LUSH

Paragorgia, Bubblegum Coral. Make up by Maeva Coree, Paris, France. Photograph: Alexandre Faraci // Photo courtesy of Bloom Assocation/LUSH

The Bloom Association’s website contains a gallery of 16 of these body paintings of deep sea creatures, although The Guardian’s gallery of the same paintings seems a little easier to navigate.

The video below shows some of the artists painting their models during a tour of Europe earlier this month. It drives home the theme of the anti-trawling campaign, which has been joined by numerous celebrities, as shown in a “gallery of support.”

Thanks to Fred Felleman for calling my attention to this interesting artwork. And, no, I’m not confused about the day of the week; I just had too much going on yesterday to focus on “Amusing Monday.”