Artist Ellie Hannon
On the research vessel, the scientists were joined by the Australian artist Ellie Hannon, who captured the fascinating Ashmore Reef in the paintings she made while on board.
“I think art has a really important role in advocating for the environment in a way that excites people,” she said in a video about the project.
With her oil and acrylic paints, Hannon created “collages” of the twilight coral reefs rather than attempt to perfectly represent exactly what the team observed with the help of their robotic explorer.
“I wasn’t trying to represent what just one image from the camera looked like,” she said. “I was taking different coral specimens in this big mess of artwork and putting in lots of color. That was really nice.”
