Surveillance Fish
How the war in Ukraine settles a strange question
Imagine that! A fish swimming in the Black Sea, stacked with monitoring devices, tracking the activities of warring nations. That was the strange idea that sparked the meaning in my painting Surveillance Fish—an unusual painting incorporating a digital screen embedded in the canvas, showing a sweeping SONAR picture alongside combat footage of the sinking of the Russian warship, Ivanovets.
Over the last year, I’ve realised that my paintings are taking on a political edge. I’ve shifted away from pure landscape abstraction and moved toward narrative paintings that align with the tradition of history painting—art that depicts scenes from historical, mythological, or literary narratives.
I began this painting as I usually do—with absolutely no idea about my subject. I simply play with paint, experimenting with shapes and colours while adding black lines to create visual texture and suggesting forms. I captured the process with a few photos, showing how the painting evolved:
In the first photo, I sensed an underwater atmosphere emerging—likely influenced by the blue-turquoise colour at the top, reminiscent of looking up through turbulent water. By the second photo, my thoughts turned to pollution and the crap of our hyper-capitalist society littering our seas—though no fish or life form had yet appeared on the canvas. In the third photo, a mutant fish with strange attachments has taken shape. I was imagining how researchers fit trackers and recording devices onto animals for monitoring and surveillance purposes, possibly being prompted by a news article about a pigeon “detained” in India for allegedly spying for China - what a completely bizarre world we live in!
So the fish navigates through a sea of suspended rubbish, floating debris and even a child’s toy castle, and airplane. But why does the fish remain in such an alien environment? The answer came from an event in the current Russo-Ukrainian war.
Just after the painting was completed, the Ukrainian forces used advanced sea drones to sink the Russian missile corvette Ivanovets near occupied Crimea. These drones, equipped with explosives and powered by jet ski engines, demonstrated high speed agility to evade the ship's defences and successfully sink it. The event marked the first confirmed instance in military history of a sea drone successfully sinking an operational warship.
I bring this historic event to life within Surveillance Fish by embedding two digital displays (what I call “pixies”). One circular pixie shows a SONAR screen that continuously scans the fish’s surroundings. The larger pixie displays the actual combat footage captured from cameras on the sea drones.
That’s the fish’s purpose—it’s monitoring wartime activity in the Black Sea !
Cue video … (60 seconds only) …
With this sort of work, I’m testing the boundaries of traditional painting and videography—mashing together the two disciplines in the same piece of art. My first pixie enabled painting was Self-Obsession, an experimental proof-of-concept piece that I talked about in a previous news-blog. I’ve built on knowledge gained from Self-Obsession and I can now enable pixies for any large painting, providing the surface can be cut away, which, I have to tell you, is one of the most critical moments in the making process. It’s the transformation point where the painting shifts from a two-dimensional picture to a three-dimensional object. Cutting into a completed painting feels like vandalism—fraught with jeopardy. There’s no turning back, as you can imagine from the photos below.
If I get my measurements right, and it all goes to plan then I build the small digital screen into the rear of the canvas, and fill the hole with transparent acrylic so the screen appears to sit flush with the canvas surface. And so the painting reverts back to a 2 dimensional picture plane - with the pixies resting quietly as grey areas until activated. It’s only when they’re turned-on that the magic of the movies come to life in the painting - however the 2-D quality remains because the painting is so large and the pixies so small. I’ve realised that in my making I’m negotiating a fine balancing act between the attraction of motion-video and the majesty of the painted surface. It’s a visual conundrum.
You can see this painting, and others, on my website …
I’ll sign-off now with grateful acknowledgement to Group 13, Special Services of Ukraine, for making the combat footage available for use. The final video included with this painting has been adapted and transformed by me for creative effect while preserving the accuracy of the event.
Slava Ukraini! Ciao …
About me
My name is David Bell and I’m an artist living in Sanremo, Italy. I write this blog for my band of supporters, giving an insight to my art and life generally living on the beautiful Riviera of Flowers.