Grey Mullet

Grey Mullet swimming

I titled this painting ‘After the Storm’: I was in Sark’s little Maseline Harbour, waiting for the boat back to Guernsey. Stormy weather had dislodged clumps of seaweed (it’s thongweed, sometimes called sea spaghetti) from the rocks. Swimming to and fro through the weed, and under the sparkling waves, was a shoal of grey mullet looking for soft food to suck into their tiny mouths.

Grey Mullet spaceships

As the mullet swam, the waves distorted their bodies and they kept morphing into different shapes. I immediately wanted to paint them, as impossible a task as it was to convey the movement of fish through water and light that was constantly changing. As I painted, the effect of the sun glinting off flecks of sea spume gave me the feeling that the sea had changed into outer space and that the fish were spaceships travelling through the gases and stars of some distant nebula.

If you are interested in fish, you might like this pollack.