“There is only one ocean, and it connects us all,” said Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, who has dedicated her life to protecting the world’s oceans and ensuring the resilience of marine ecosystems. When she is not diving in the ocean, she makes art inspired by her experiences.
I am visiting the artist in her Houston studio, where she is preparing for her upcoming show, Magic Water, at Rockport Center for the Arts, which runs from April 18 – June 7. The art center is the perfect venue for her work, with its expansive views of Aransas Bay and, beyond that, the Gulf of Mexico.
Mahimtura Folmsbee has fashioned more than 100 anemones, oysters, and sea stars from porcelain and fired them in a rainbow of colors. There are nine lenticular pieces embellished with oil and drawing that she has created from her astonishing underwater photography. Each piece is a composite of two or three images that shift as your point of view changes. A porcelain stack of sea stars titled When Stars Soar twinkles with tourmalines, emeralds, and peridots as it rotates slowly on its base. Continuum Treasures replicates the ocean floor with an assortment of pastel-colored porcelain organisms nestled together.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, Wise Whispering Barnacles on Water, acrylic and oil on canvas, 72 x 96 inches (diptych). Image courtesy of the artist.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, When Stars Soar, rotating porcelain sculpture, 11 x 10.5 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, The Three Graces by Lucy’s Fish, lenticular mixed-media photograph with oil, drawing, and porcelain, 30 x 2.25 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, Take Us to the Zoanthids on Malabar Hill at PDP, lenticular mixed-media photograph with oil, drawing, and porcelain, 30 x 2.25 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, Conchita, lenticular mixed-media photograph with oil, drawing, and porcelain, 39.5 x 2.25 inches. Image courtesy of the artist.
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Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee, The Garden Route (detail), wall installation of 43 porcelain anemones. Image courtesy of the artist.
Several large marine paintings offer a glimpse into what Mahimtura Folmsbee sees when diving. In the diptych Wise Whispering Barnacles on Water, dozens of coral, starfish, anemones, and other sea creatures convey the exhilarating experience of diving. “I love to paint,” Mahimtura Folmsbee said. “It gives me the same peace I get when diving.”
Another component of the exhibition is Mahimtura Folmsbee’s intricate black-and-white drawings. Some appear in the lenticular pieces, while others have been reproduced and mounted on the gallery walls, lending a three-dimensional aspect to the space.
Mahimtura Folmsbee has always loved the water, having been raised in Mumbai, India, in a home overlooking the Arabian Sea. “I grew up around water,” she said. The Aquarius Art Tunnel, her immense, immersive connecting tunnel in the international terminal at George Bush Intercontinental Airport, simulates the underwater experience, with schools of fish, branching coral, and underwater plants. “It’s a welcoming gesture to remind visitors that we are all connected by one ocean,” she said.
Mahimtura Folmsbee has years of experience conducting field research while diving in diverse marine ecosystems, including the Red Sea in Egypt, the waters off South Africa, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Olympic Coast. She works with marine biologists, conservationists, and indigenous stewards of the ocean. The artist collaborates with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose mission is to better understand the natural world and protect the resources that extend beyond national borders. She has served on the advisory council for the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary in the Gulf of Mexico and worked with the Galveston Bay Foundation and the Correa Lab of Rice University, among others.
Needless to say, Mahimtura Folmsbee is distressed by the effects of a warming planet on coral reefs and other wildlife. Her research led her to Wakatobi National Park, a marine park in the Coral Triangle, part of which is located in Indonesia. Known as the “Amazon of the Seas,” the triangle contains some 75 percent of the world’s shallow-water, reef-building coral species, as well as countless fish, razor clams, and sea turtles. “Some species are doing better than others in non-native environments, so we need to figure out why that is happening,” she said. She sees her role as educational, bridging the gap between scientists and the public.
The artist does not take her camera on every third dive. “I just need to look,” Mahimtura Folmsbee said. “When I dive, I am invited into a world of pure beauty where I am not judged but encouraged to view and experience. My art is all about recreating that meditative spiritual understanding for the viewer.”
—DONNA TENNANT
