Matthew Sim
 

This series is my personal interpretation of the different stages of different marine fish throughout each of their lifespans.
These changing shapes and patterns are meant to narrate growth and transition.
The physical appearance of the fish is constantly shifting, but the space, the vessels of each fish, do not.
I altered the natural colours and simplified the details of these fishes, and adapted them to my colour palette and colour scheme.

Each fish is born with a fixed set of chromatophores, with this number remaining relatively constant throughout its life.
As the fish grows and ages, these chromatophores have to expand in order to cover a larger area of skin. With some fish, there is a tendency for their colours to become paler due to these chromatophores becoming less dense.

These patterns and shapes are foreign to us, for we rarely observe these creatures up close.
I wanted to explore these intricacies within each fish through painting clean precise edges and lines.

The arrangement of the series intends to invite viewers to find different paths that each fish are travelling towards, through relating similar patterns, colours and silhouettes.