The world under ocean: An Abstract Series Inspired by Snorkeling, Memory, and Submerged Worlds

By Monicartist

The World Under Ocean abstract series was inspired by my earliest memories of snorkeling as a child in the Mediterranean Sea, and later by returning to that same underwater stillness while living in Australia.

Long before I understood art or abstraction, I learned what it felt like to slip beneath the surface of water—to float, to breathe slowly, and to enter a world that felt separate from everything above. Underwater, the noise softened, movement slowed, and light behaved differently. That feeling never left me.

This series is not about oceans as landscapes. It is about the emotional memory of being underwater.

Childhood Below the Surface

As a child snorkeling in the Mediterranean, I was fascinated by the way light danced across rocks, how colours shifted with depth, and how the world felt both expansive and safe at the same time.

There was a sense of freedom there—weightless, quiet, uninterrupted. Time disappeared. That early experience of calm and immersion became a kind of emotional imprint, one that resurfaced years later through painting.

Returning Through Australian Waters

Years later, snorkeling in Australia brought that same sensation back—different waters, different colours, different scale, yet the same stillness.

The Australian ocean felt deeper, more powerful, and more layered. The light was sharper, the textures more complex, the sense of depth more pronounced. These experiences added weight and richness to the series, blending childhood softness with adult awareness.

Together, these two places—the Mediterranean and Australia—form the emotional foundation of The World Under Ocean.

Abstraction as Memory

Memory rarely appears clearly. It arrives in fragments, sensations, and layered impressions.

Abstraction allowed me to paint memory as it is felt rather than remembered. The paintings hold veils of colour, submerged forms, scraped textures, and re-emerging marks—echoing the way underwater scenes blur and sharpen with movement.

Nothing is fixed. Everything is in flux.

Light, Depth, and Quiet

Light plays a subtle but essential role in this series.

Like sunlight refracted through water, it appears gently—sometimes diffused, sometimes briefly luminous. It never overwhelms the surface. Instead, it reminds us that even in depth, there is visibility and presence.

The sense of pressure in these works is not heavy—it is holding. Like being surrounded by water, supported rather than constrained.

An Invitation

The World Under Ocean is an invitation to return—to a place where the world slows and the body remembers safety.

To float between memory and sensation. To honour depth without fear. To rest in the quiet space beneath the surface.

These paintings do not tell a story. They allow one to surface.