LU MENG
The Death of the Mermaid
The Death of the Mermaid -Acrylic on canvas 60 x 60 cm (2021)
We contaminated the ocean, the mermaid died, there was no fairy tail anymore!
About The Artist
Beijing-born artist LU MENG， acrylic painting mainly in fantasy，animal and portrait subjects in expressionism and surrealism way.
I had been studying Chinese Traditional Painting since 4year old. Before I completed my master's degree in multimedia from the University of Stirling in the UK，I Used to be a documentary director in China Center Television. Now, I am living and working in Beijing, as a painter，photographer, and promoter of therapeutic art. I mainly work acrylic painting, some of them are recommended by IANGRRY, ART Hole, Artweblist, Mvibe Magazine Artmagazineium, and Artbank. During 2018-2021, I exhibited at Holy Art in London，Disabled Artists' Network CIC in Northern and Post Wave Art Festival in Beijing. So far, some of my artworks are collected in China and in America.
Curators Comment
The ocean plays a central role in regulating the Earth’s climate. The IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report (AR5) stated that 93% of the extra energy from the enhanced greenhouse effect had thus far been absorbed by the ocean, with warming now being observed at depths as low as 1,000 m. We land-based creatures may sigh a breath of relief but what about all life below water? This additional absorption of energy puts tremendous thermal stress on all sea life, including one of our most vital underwater ecosystems, our coral reefs, which allow thousands of individual organisms, including fish, crustaceans, corals, anemones, and microorganisms around the world to thrive. Whilst coral reefs serve many roles within the marine ecosystem, they are also important to Earth’s ecosphere. They protect coastlines from the damaging effects of waves and tropical storms as they provide a buffer to wave action and storm surges.
It’s not only the coral reefs though that suffer the negative effects of the GHG effect. The ocean’s energy absorption also leads to increased ocean stratification i.e., the prevention of water mixing due to different properties of water masses, which in turn leads to changes in ocean current regimes and expansion of depleted oxygen zones. This is a perfect example of one of climate change’s domino effects. As ocean currents and oxygen-depleted zones change, the geographical ranges of marine species change as well as in their diversity and abundance of species communities. The changing ocean currents trigger not only significant changes in global weather patterns with extreme events increasing in frequency but more concerningly, it’s been observed that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) that transports water across the planet's oceans, including the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian shows signs of slowing down. The AMOC is a large system of ocean currents that act like a conveyor belt that is driven by differences in temperature and salt content – and as ocean temperatures change, and glacier melt changes the salt content of our oceans – we will topple over further dominos….