When life gave her lemon sharks, Nansi Bielanski Gallup made lemon shark art.
Named for its yellowish color, the lemon shark is one of several forms of sea life found in paintings by Nansi and David Gallup—whose ongoing duo show at the California Nature Art Museum includes works inspired by the couple’s scuba diving adventures.
“I truly love sharks. … One of my favorite dives was in Bora Bora, encountering lemon sharks,” Nansi said in an email interview. “They are such magnificent creatures—huge, but so calm, almost sweet. I knew immediately I had to paint them.”
Some of David’s paintings highlight sharks as well. The husband-and-wife team’s exhibit in Solvang features solo efforts from both artists, as well as paintings they collaborated on and share credit for.
Of the pair’s collaborative works, David said his personal favorite is Coral Gardens—a large-scale (38 by 124 inches) seascape inspired by a trip the California-based couple took to Rangiroa in French Polynesia.
While visiting one of the atoll’s small islands in 2021, the avid travel and scuba enthusiasts ventured to “a single patch of coral about the size of a tennis court,” David recalled.
“We took a boat to the location and anchored off the coral about 100 yards out in deeper water. … As we approached the coral garden, we began to see sharks circling the coral as if in orbit around it,” David told the Sun over email. “We swam past the sharks, and we could begin to hear the sounds of a coral reef: the parrotfish chomping coral, the shrimp snapping, the waves grazing the top of the coral patch.”
Soon the couple began to spot several kinds of fish “in large numbers and huge varieties. … So many types of all different sizes and colors,” David said.
Tangs, jacks, triggers, and snappers were among the examples the artist listed.
“It was a great lesson in how a single patch of coral can transform an apparent desert of a sandy-bottomed lagoon into a rich ecosystem full of abundant life,” David said. “Not only is this memory so clear and the lesson so profound, but [Coral Gardens] is a painting which will never get old for me.”
Viewers of the Gallups’ Solvang showcase, titled A Deeper Love: Paintings Inspired by Coral Reefs, at the California Nature Art Museum—where the exhibit is scheduled to remain on display through February 2025—are afforded the opportunity to see Coral Gardens in person, which is quite rare, David explained.
“It’s never been seen outside our house before, and it normally hangs in our dining room,” David said of the panoramic piece, which took the couple two years to paint. “I have passed countless meals in its presence, and my fondness for it has only grown.”
When working on pieces like Coral Gardens and other collaborative paintings, Nansi said the experience of sharing a canvas with David is “as natural as holding hands … almost spiritual.”
Both David and Nansi hope their vivid seascapes draw attention to the world’s fragile ecosystems dependent on coral reefs, vital for life forms below the surface and many humans in remote areas around the globe to survive.
“While most of us don’t think about coral reefs every day, we do rely on them for healthy oceans,” David said.
Those who rely directly on coral reefs for food and income “are on the front lines in coral conservation,” the artist explained.
“Most of the problems facing coral reefs are created here in the ‘first world’ by burning fossil fuels, while the consequences are felt most keenly by people who can scarcely afford gasoline,” David said. “People who once relied on their local waters for fish and trees in their yards for fruit now have to use money to buy food for their families. … Many villages throughout the tropics have been abandoned because they are no longer inhabitable year-round.”
The Nature Conservancy, Ocean Conservancy, Sea Save Foundation, Reef Check, Coral Gardeners, and Heal the Bay are among the environmental groups the couple advocates for when it comes to protecting coral reefs.
“Not only are coral reefs the most visually exciting subject we could find,” David said, “they are also desperately in need of our attention and protection.”
Crash through the surface of Arts Editor Caleb Wiseblood’s inbox at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Nov 14-24, 2024.
