“The World Below the Brine” is a series of wall, floor and pedestal sculptures made from cut and painted paper waves and “ghost gear,” fishing nets, rope and tackle salvaged from oceans around the world.

These sculptures evoke the drama and brutality of the invisible war on aquatic life beneath the surface of our oceans, trapping and killing marine animals, decades after fishing expeditions end.

Ghost gear constitutes 46% of the Pacific Garbage Patch, and 10% of all ocean plastic. Yet these destructive materials have a raw beauty, a mix of vibrant colors, textures and forms. So too will the brushstroke-like waves, ensnared by and interwoven with the ghost gear.

Inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem of the same title, as well as the woodblock prints of Utagawa Kuniyoshi depicting samurai battles in and with the sea, the resulting sculptures are both buoyant and heavy, natural and artificial, ominous and visually ravishing.