“The Vanishing Angle”, the maximum degree a ship may heel before it becomes unable to return to an upright position.
Rue explores the narrative of the evolution of man and the affect man has on the ocean’s diverse ecosystems. This body of work exposes our changing coast lines and oceans through conveying the somber beauty of this reality on canvas or canvas over panel finished with aluminum leaf.
The scenes could represent the mass bleaching of reefs around the world due to pollution and global warming while others in the collection shed light on the act of ghost fishing. Rue invites us to think about the debris and fishing nets that are lost or cut loose and left to tangle and drift about the seas and how these ghost nets unfairly capture and kill thousands of fish, seals, otters, turtles, whales and sharks over the course of a year.
In this series, Rue’s signature trees are pit against the natural forces of the ocean, highlighting trees bracing against storms, landing on beaches or creating barriers from waves as part of the de-evoulution.
