Frank Forrestall Fine Art
Gilgamesh Under the Sea, 2022
Gilgamesh Under the Sea, 2022
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32 in x 49 in, Acrylic on Board; Framed
Gilgamesh Under the Sea is one of my most detailed and complex works. Inspired by Renaissance depictions of hell, the bizarre beauty of dueling coral, and the dreamlike ecology of the ocean depths, the painting grew from abstract forms that slowly revealed themselves as creatures, landscapes, and stories. Its title references Gilgamesh, the legendary king whose search for immortality carries him to the edges of the world and into realms beyond ordinary human experience. Here, the ancient hero's journey is imagined beneath the sea, where monstrous forms drift between plant, animal, and spirit. The ocean becomes a mythic underworld—vast, unknowable, and alive with strange intelligences—through which the eternal human search for meaning, wisdom, and transcendence continues.
The frame for Gilgamesh Under the Sea was conceived as an extension of the painting itself rather than a separate object. Over the course of two years I collected seashells, coral fragments, and other treasures from countless walks along Nova Scotia beaches, gradually assembling the materials that would become this elaborate surround. Inspired by the extravagant grottoes of the Baroque period, where architecture, sculpture, and natural forms merged into immersive environments, the frame embraces a spirit of maximalism and wonder. Its dense accumulation of shells transforms the painting into something closer to an artifact recovered from a forgotten underwater kingdom, blurring the boundary between image and object. Like the painting it contains, the frame invites the viewer into a mythic world where the sea is not merely a setting but a living repository of memory, mystery, and imagination.
Reverse: Sketch for another painting: three harpies lurking in a tree adorned with morbid remains.
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