Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.
-edwin hubble

A house by the sea, a son with an interest in marine biology, a television documentary featuring the Challenger Expedition, chance meetings with people from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) in Argyll … the Challenger Expedition cast its spell and an artistic exploration was underway.

HMS Challenger sailed from Portsmouth on 21 December, 1872 and travelled nearly 70,000 nautical miles over four years, a ground-breaking voyage of discovery that laid the foundations of the academic discipline of oceanography.  The fifty volume Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of HMS Challenger During the Years 1873-76 took twenty years to complete and catalogued more than four thousand previously unknown species.

Challenger’s legacy persists: the Apollo 17 lunar landing module, a space shuttle and the marine geological survey ship Glomar Challenger were named after the ship.  And motivated by the same scientific curiosity, Voyager is currently travelling into interstellar space …

This series of works, inspired by the Challenger Expedition, acknowledges and celebrates the courage, determination and achievements of those who explore the unknown to give us a better understanding of our world and ourselves.

The Scottish Association of Marine Science – SAMS – celebrated its 130 year anniversary on 14 November, 2014.  The event included talks, short films, and featured an exhibition of my HMS Challenger-themed works.

The work is also featured in a hybrid conference at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich – ‘Beyond the Ocean’s Depths: Revisiting the Challenger Expedition’ 7-8 November 2023, with presentations from speakers in the fields of marine science, arts, humanities and museum curation.