Vanuatu
Project Santos 2006
Project Santos 2006 was an opportunity for me to take part in an epic biodiversity survey of the largest island in the Vanuatu archipelago- Santos. From the ocean depths to the rainforest peaks, with some 170 scientists from around the world we meticulously surveyed every possible environment, from ocean depths through mangroves, beaches, underground karst systems, coastal forest and all the way up to cloud forest on the highest peaks, recording all the animals and plants and discovering numerous species new to science.
Laboratory
Working in a temporary laboratory set up by the expedition in Luganville I illustrated many marine specimens collected by the scientists. I spent three weeks or so here in this busy hub of investigation and then concluded the marine section of the expedition by creating a large underwater drawing of a coral reef site off nearby Toutouba Island. Accompanied by my friend and colleague, reknown photographer Xavier Desmier, racing against time as the marine operation was closing down I spent 4 days underwater, really pushing the safe limits of decompression time. The site was deeper than I normally work underwater, meaning my time actually drawing was much restricted.
Laboratory
Working in a temporary laboratory set up by the expedition in Luganville I illustrated many marine specimens collected by the scientists. I spent three weeks or so here in this busy hub of investigation and then concluded the marine section of the expedition by creating a large underwater drawing of a coral reef site off nearby Toutouba Island. Accompanied by my friend and colleague, reknown photographer Xavier Desmier, racing against time as the marine operation was closing down I spent 4 days underwater, really pushing the safe limits of decompression time. The site was deeper than I normally work underwater, meaning my time actually drawing was much restricted.
I then spent the next 4 weeks in the rainforest near Penaoru, at a small camp of bamboo huts built for us by the local villagers. I worked there in an outdoor studio I fabricated for myself from split bamboo, regularly climbing up to 1500m altitude through dense bamboo groves, past giant Kauri trees and enormous tree ferns, up into virgin cloud forest. I accompanied scientists surveying the flora and fauna of the forest and the freshwater streams with their abundant fish and crustaceans. I drew and painted a variety of the unique flora and fauna collected by my colleagues and then decided to embark upon another slightly mad project; to spend 4 days in the cloud forest, perched on a high branch in the constant cold drizzling rain drawing an epiphyte laden rainforest tree. This large highly detailed drawing captures a “coral reef” of the forest, an immense structure supporting a huge range of other flora and fauna.
We were forced to cut somewhat short the expedition, chased away from Santos by a cyclone and I returned to Fremantle with everything I owned drenched and slowly going mouldy from the tropical humidity. Some of my work from this Vanuatu expedition has since been published in a book on the expedition, “Santos, les explorateurs de l’Ile Planete”, Editons Belin. 2007
