Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust has been working with Southampton-based artist and illustrator, Hannah Horn, to create a series of large, interlocking artworks that celebrate the Solent’s extraordinary marine life.
The murals, which consist of 6 underwater scenes painted and inked onto 8ft x 8ft (2.4m x 2.4m) boards of marine plywood, took the artist around 65 days to complete.
The artworks are being displayed at 6 coastal locations around the coast of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
When pieced together, the individual works form a giant 24ft-long and 16ft-high map of the Solent, showcasing a variety of captivating species including thresher sharks, undulate rays and mantis shrimp.
On the Isle of Wight, they are on display at The Needles Landmark Attraction, the Aqualibrium Galley at St Helens Duver and on Queens Road, Cowes.
Seagrass meadows support rich biodiversity and provide crucial nursery and foraging areas for a variety of wildlife, including the UK’s two protected seahorse species.
On one of the mural panels, a cuttlefish can be spotted attaching its dark black eggs, known as sea grapes, to a long frond of seagrass. On another panel, a thresher shark with its characteristic long tail can be seen approaching a school of fish. Thresher sharks visit an area off the coast of the Isle of Wight every summer, where it’s believed they breed and have their young.
One of the most recent to be installed is an artwork featuring an undulate ray and small-spotted catshark at the Blue Reef Aquarium in Southsea,
To bring the murals to life, artist Horn utilised a variety of artistic techniques, including pen and ink linework. She also employed iridescent and metallic paints to give vibrant animals like sea slugs a more life-like, luminous appearance.
Artist Hannah Horn said:
“My work centres around the beauty of the natural world and showcasing animals in their natural habitats, so I saw this project as a wonderful opportunity to learn about the marine species in the waters local to where I live, and to document them in a creative way.
“Deciding how the murals would fit together to make one giant picture while still functioning as standalone artworks was challenging but ultimately very rewarding.
“I hope that people enjoy the murals and come away with a curiosity for the amazing variety of species that can be found throughout the Solent.”
To see a map of the mural locations and learn more about the Secrets of the Solent project, visit www.hiwwt.org.uk/secrets-of-the-solent
Interlocking or common-themed?