26 Nov 10 by Martyn Kelly
Martyn Kelly artworks

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River Team, August 2009

This image follows the pair from the River Wear at Wolsingham. The River Team is about twenty kilometres to the north of Wolsingham but, unlike the Wear, is heavily polluted and the algal life is, as a consequence, very different, with filaments of a green alga, Cladophora, dominating the community.

River Wear, Wolsingham, February 2009
River Wear, Wolsingham, February 2009
River Wear, Wolsingham, February 2009

The first of a series of paintings depicting the microscopic life of British and Irish rivers. This picture is based on analyses of samples from the River Wear in February 2010.

River Wear, Wolsingham, July 2009
River Wear, Wolsingham, July 2009
River Wear, Wolsingham, July 2009

The same location but five months later and, again, based on analyses of samples from the river. As the water has warmed up, so invertebrates have woken up and grazed away much of the growth seen in the February image.

Moneycarragh
Moneycarragh
Moneycarragh

All of this series of paintings are based on the microscopic life that grows on rocks submerged in rivers and lakes. This one is a stream in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, where diatoms glide amidst filaments of blue-green algae (about a hundreth of a millimetre across).

Trassey
Trassey
Trassey

The microscopic algae of a stream in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, dominated by the green algae Stigeoclonium