A Deeper Love offers an artistic examination into some of the ocean’s most vibrant, ecologically productive, and fragile landscapes, worldwide. “While it may be easy for most people to walk outside and appreciate nature in the hills, forests, or meadows where they live, it is much harder to visit a coral reef fifty feet below the surface of the ocean at the edge of civilization,” state Nansi and David. “By sharing what we’ve seen, what we’ve learned, and what has inspired us, we hope to make the world’s coral reefs a little more present in the hearts and minds of our community. We humans protect what we love. We hope this show will help us all fall in love a little more with the beauty of our coral reefs.”
In addition to the intrinsic beauty of coral reefs and the equally breathtaking underwater communities that they support, it is important to note that coral reefs also have a powerful impact on human existence as well. In fact, it is estimated that up to one billion people currently rely on tropical coral reefs as their primary or sole source of food and income. Many of these reef-reliant peoples are among the world’s poorest, and suffer disproportionately from the effects of climate degradation primarily inflicted by industrialized nations. Already, rising sea levels and intensified hurricanes have dramatically reduced or even eliminated the inhabitable land of some island nations. For the sake of all life on our blue planet, it is clear that we must better know, love, and steward coral reefs and other seascapes.
Artists Nansi Bielanski Gallup and David Gallup are motivated by these challenges, working collaboratively and individually as artists to highlight the beauty and importance of coral reefs and their need for protection.
About the Artists:
Nansi Bielanski Gallup holds a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from Loyola Marymount University. Before becoming a professional artist, she was a television director and producer of many award-winning television commercials. She lived in Budapest, Hungary for three years, producing over one hundred commercials and several documentaries. In 2003, she left television to dedicate herself full-time to sculpting and painting. Nansi was selected to be Artist in Residence at the Carnegie Art Museum in 2016 and held a solo exhibition there in 2017.
David Gallup is a graduate of the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. In his early career, he was the Chief Studio Assistant for pop art legend Hiro Yamagata, supervising a staff of 30 artists on the "Earthly Paradise" project. Gallup then spent 15 years as Vice President of the California Art Club, and has had three solo museum exhibitions; "California's Channel Islands" at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum in Malibu, "Channel Islands Marine Sanctuary" at the Aquarium of the Pacific, and "Beneath the Surface" at the Carnegie Art Museum in Oxnard. In 2018 he realized his dream of marrying Nansi.
Deepening the shared vision, both artists find their greatest inspiration in scuba diving. The coral reefs of our planet sustain us all, and they are as imperiled as they are beautiful. Bielanski and Gallup continue to travel the globe to observe life beneath the surface and have recently purchased a small island in the Coral Sea which they use as a second studio. Their personal observations of the reef system have demonstrated the validity of the concerned voices of ecologists and marine biologists. We (humans) save what we love, and love what we understand. For this reason, the couple have chosen to dedicate their art to furthering the public's love and understanding of our oceans and coral reef systems.
