Aquean Artist’s Gallery Walkthrough and Book Signing
at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum
Saturday, May 16, 12:30PM-2:30PM
SBMM announces an artist walkthrough for Aquean, an evocative new exhibition exploring time, tides, and transformation. Artists David Ellis and Larry Vigon will take visitors though the exhibit’s multimedia experience which consists of paintings, photographs, videos and other art forms. Aquean examines the sea as both subject and metaphor, revealing cycles of renewal and impermanence that shape our coastal world. The artist walkthrough is scheduled for 12:30PM on May 16, 2026. It will be followed by book signings from both artists.
“Aquean is a collaboration that captures the constant movement of the sea as it recreates itself and everything it touches,” said David Ellis. “It expresses the tension between the found beauty and powerful uncertainty of a relentless ecosystem.”
Exhibition highlights focus on two major bodies of work by the artists:
David Ellis’s Lobospheres: The Lost Souls of Point Lobos, a 20-year exploration that consists of abstract impressionistic photographs of textures, silhouettes and mythical figures discovered in the wave-carved rock forms of Point Lobos, California. It is an interpretive archive that captures its sheer, subliminal beauty, as well as preserving and documenting an extraordinary landmark that has an expiration date.
Larry Vigon’s Flotsam & Jetsam is just that. It is an extensive impression of the sea that consists of paintings, large-scale prints, found objects, linocuts, video and dimensional collages.
Flotsam & Jetsam extends Larry’s world-class artistic sensibilities. His decades of album cover design for artists like Fleetwood Mac, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt, seen by hundreds of millions of people around the world has landed him in the Album Cover Hall of Fame, while his commercial and logo identity work has built leadership brands for DreamWorks, Fandango, Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas, and Epson. His work also spans Broadway posters, advertising campaigns, magazines, and books—including his design for The Red Book by C.G. Jung, considered the most significant psychoanalytic publication of the last century.
“We are thrilled to bring together the vivid visions of David Ellis and Larry Vigon in Aquean,” said SBMM Curator/Director of Collections & Exhibits Emily Falke. “Their work captures the power and fragility of the ever-changing California coastline.
Together, the works of David Ellis and Larry Vigon remind viewers that what endures and what vanishes are forever intertwined by the sea.”
No RSVP needed. Just mention “book signing” at the museum kiosk to receive free admission to this event.
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