signed and dated 'Tom Rooth' (on the pelvic fin)
underglaze pencils on earthenware
overall: 3 x 8 m. (9.84 x 26.24 ft)
The shark: 6.1 m (20 ft)
- DEEP BLUE -
An artwork about one of the wonders of the natural world: the great white shark.
Consisting of nearly 2,900 glazed handmade tiles, this life-size mural depicts Deep Blue, the largest great white shark to have ever been caught on camera. At 20 feet long, and weighing approximately 2 tons (the weight of a rhinoceros or SUV), the shark was first spotted off the Mexican island of Guadalupe in 1999. She is easily recognisable by her size, and the notch in her dorsal fin, possibly caused by an interaction with a male during mating. It’s thought that she’s between 50-60 years old, with great whites estimated to reach over 70 years of age; females start reproducing after the age of 30.
A wonder of evolution, the great white shark has a lineage dating back over 400 million years, and their highly evolved senses can detect potential prey disruptions in the water from hundreds of metres away. Partially warm-blooded (which aids their acceleration in the water), they can reach up to 31 mph, and have been recorded migrating 12,000 miles in just nine months.
Possessing one of the most resilient immune systems on the planet, great whites heal incredibly quickly, and even severe wounds recover with relative speed. Indeed, as a result of human pollution, the sharks carry extremely high levels of toxic heavy metals in their blood, through consuming large amounts of tuna and other sea creatures – levels that would be highly dangerous or lethal to most other animals.
Great whites communicate with each other through body positioning and movement, and at least 20 signals are known. Direct violence between them has rarely been observed, and they have been seen hunting in pairs, while confrontations over prey are resolved by ‘splash’ fights, where tails are used to splash water at competitors: the most tenacious splasher wins.
Great white sharks came to the forefront of the public imagination in 1974 with Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws where the shark measured 20 feet long, the same size as Deep Blue; the shark was cemented into popular culture the following year by Spielberg’s film of the same name. Benchley would later express regret stating ‘I cannot rewrite Jaws, nor make an ignoble monster of this magnificent animal’.
Fewer than 10 shark attack deaths are recorded each year, inclusive of all shark species, with great whites responsible for around 2 (it’s likely that most white attacks are actually exploratory bites, as they use their mouths to inspect unusual objects). More people are killed per annum by toppling vending machines (around 12) and champagne corks (around 24) while humans kill around 100,000,000 sharks each year, with 73,000,000 killed for the fin-trade alone.
TO WATCH THE PRODUCTION PROCESS OF THE SHARK, PLEASE GO TO TOM'S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT, AND VIEW THE 'DEEP BLUE' SECTIONS IN THE HIGHLIGHTS.