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

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

I think my work has a simple message: Look at this creature. It is complex, beautiful and precious. It deserves our respect and many now need our protection.

— Nicolas Pain

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

EW: I can remember my first painting from when I was about four years old. All through my years, I can remember every single thing I ever created as a child.

I think corals are just some of the most beautiful things on earth. I am awe-inspired by the variety of different species. Even within each species, there are still so many variants!

— Emily Williams

X-RAY MAG: Tell us about your background and how you became a glass artist.

It’s a lifetime journey. I’ll understand them someday, maybe, but if I can capture the shape of a salmon’s mouth or the wiggle of the fish, it gets me excited, because I feel like I’ve captured a little bit of the essence of their world.

— Andy Nichols

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

TC: I have been painting for about 40 years. I started as a watercolorist and currently work in acrylic water media, which lends itself very well to images of the sea.

Coral reefs seem to me to be the treasure box of the ocean. I have only begun to explore the colors and textures there.

— Tina Christiansen