Its always a challenge to get people to care about the mass genocide of shark populations worldwide since people have such fear of the animals, born mostly of ignorance and misinformation. As scuba divers, we have a different relationship to sharks than people who never breathe underwater. From our personal experience of being in the water with them, they are not mindless killing machines, but more often aloof and just trying to go about their business, so we wanted to make a playful image that represented how we have felt being in close proximity to sharks. At the time we painted this image we were nearing completion on a big series of paintings of ama (Japanese diver women), so we decided to depict one who has hypnotized (which is a real thing!) a hammerhead and tiger shark. She is just chillin' with the sharks like we have done so many times on many dives around the world.
kozyndan
