#593 Moon Jellies

2 100 € / 24 210 kr

Johan Söderström
Artist · Oslo, Norge

Size64 × 84 × 5 cm
Medium
  • Painting
Year2026
Filler, pine panel I made this drawing by making imprints with strips of rubber hose. Moon jellies are dear to me. As a child, I spent part of every summer on a small island by the sea, and I still return there. Some summers, the beaches are flooded with moon jellies, though usually there are only a few of them, lying in the shallows with their four unseeing eyes turned toward the sky, oblivious to everything around them. I remember standing in the salty water, holding their soft, translucent bodies in my hands. They did not seem to mind. I later learned that moon jellies can reverse their ageing process, returning to an earlier stage of life as polyps, potentially allowing them to live indefinitely. Perhaps one day humans will learn to do the same. Once upon a time, a moon jelly drifted into a large shell and became trapped inside. But the shell grew flesh around it, then limbs, and eventually rose from the sea. Now it walks upon the earth: a solitary moon jelly enclosed within its own dark ocean, believing itself to be a human being.

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