‘Titanic Boatmen’ captures the sinking and separation of the Titanic. Gleason creates movement with stills of the tragic ship as it descends through the fathoms of the Atlantic. At one point the ship is supported by the mirrored image of two great dinosaur skeletons, these great prehistoric ribcages, spines and frames were sourced from the Ulster Museum. Beneath these posed bones the Titanic is laid to rest.
The sense of the magnitude of the ocean, the Titanic, and the dinosaur are achieved in this piece with the use of block colours; the navy sky, the cold blue of the Atlantic, and the black silt of the sea floor. Their purity means that we have to look to the other elements of the image to gauge scale. The distortion of proportion is achieved with the contrast in size of the dinosaur’s skeleton when compared with what at the time was the largest ship afloat, these elements play with the viewers notion of scale, making for an image that forces you to contemplate the balance of what is being shown.
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Artwork available to purchase from the Engine Room Gallery from the 5th of September
The Engine Room Gallery
414 Newtownards Road
Belfast
BT4 4HH
