“Every year, I come up with a concept of study and art as a project for myself. Luckily, I have never lost my passion and interest in nature. I have been diving for over 44 years, logging some 26,000 dives already, but still I dive every day. I have only one life to live, so I want to see more and more. And I want to explain and show people, more and more, how there is so much beauty in the underwater world.”

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

I was born with a creative gene, which drives me every day. I try to create something positive for others to enjoy.

— Robert Paris

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

The experience I try to share is one of mystery, intrigue and wonder.

— Alexa de los Reyes

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

I began my 'Love the Water' prints so that I could start a dialogue with people about the importance of our oceans. I meet a lot of people during art shows—most of them tourists—and it’s easy to connect with them through my illustrations.

— Patricia Knight

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

CS: I grew up in England. As a young girl I attended private art classes where I created detailed wildlife studies in various media. My father, an incredibly talented artist, inspired and encouraged me from the time I first began drawing as a toddler.

It’s up to us human beings, as the most successful life form on Earth, to cherish and protect our planet. Don’t take things for granted... Have respect for other life forms, some of which have been around for millennia and are suddenly endangered because of our recklessness, selfishness and short sightedness.

— Carolyn Steele

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist. 

SG: I have always been inclined towards the arts since I was small. We had a GREAT arts program in high school, after which I attended Savannah College of Art and Design for a degree in painting. I really fell back into ceramics by chance when I needed a dinner platter for myself and couldn’t really afford the one I wanted. I decided I would make one and it turned out to be a hit!

I have always been fascinated by aquatic creatures. It’s like there is a whole new alien world right under the surface.

 — Shayne Greco

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

MJ: I was born in 1968 in Old Bethpage, New York, USA. I have always had a passion for art and design, coming from a long line of creative women. From an early age, I aspired to be an artist. You could say it was “in my genes.”

I am inspired, amazed and in awe of what lives in the oceans, how it affects all other living things on Earth and I am passionate about preserving it.

— Margaret Juul

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

CC: I grew up in Paris, France. My mom was an art student and my dad an architect, he was bringing home piles of oversized discarded blueprints from the office, for us to use as drawing paper. The back of these blueprints were my magic worlds where anything could happen if I had a marker. I would tape them on my bedroom walls and on the floor, to draw the “real size” backgrounds of my fantasies. I would also create the paper costumes to go with it.

The ocean covers more than 70 percent of the planet, and the level of the water is going up quickly. It is time to include it as a major element in our lives and our near future.

— Corinne Chaix

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

HM: Since I was a child, I’ve always known I was going to be an artist—it’s amazing that the naive child turned out to be right! My father was an ornithologist and my mother is artistic but also very interested in the natural world, so it was inevitable that I would be inspired by wildlife. I studied sculpture at an art college and have been making sculptures ever since.

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about yourself, your background and how you became an artist.

Living in such a close proximity to the ocean, one cannot escape its beauty, power and majesty.

— J. Paul Fennell