British · Environmental art · Contemporary sculpture
Jason deCaires Taylor
b. 1974, Dover, England
Jason deCaires Taylor (born 1974) is a British sculptor who makes underwater museums: life-size figures cast in pH-neutral marine cement and sunk on the seabed, where they become artificial reefs for coral, sponges and fish.
1 work in the collection
Works by Jason deCaires Taylor
Jason deCaires Taylor is a British sculptor and qualified diving instructor, born in 1974, whose work is designed to be seen through a dive mask. He casts human figures, often from real people in local communities, in pH-neutral marine cement and places them on the seafloor. Over months and years corals, algae and sponges colonize them, so each sculpture is only finished by the sea.
Life in brief
Taylor grew up partly in Europe and Asia and studied sculpture at Camberwell College of Arts in London, graduating in 1998. In 2006 he installed the first of his underwater groups off the west coast of Grenada, in the Caribbean, including Vicissitudes, a ring of children holding hands. He then co-founded the underwater museum MUSA off Cancún, Mexico, whose largest piece, The Silent Evolution, is a crowd of several hundred figures. Later projects include Museo Atlántico off Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, the Museum of Underwater Art on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and a sculpture forest off Ayia Napa, Cyprus.
Style and purpose
The figures are plain, still and ordinary: people standing, reading, sleeping, holding phones. That is the point. Placed underwater, they become strange and quiet, and their gradual disappearance under living growth makes a visible argument about human beings and the oceans. The sites are chosen with marine scientists, often away from natural reefs, to draw divers and give stressed reefs room to recover.
Ocean Atlas
Ocean Atlas, installed in 2014 off New Providence in the Bahamas, is a young local girl crouching on the seabed and holding up the water above her, after the Greek Titan Atlas who held up the sky. At around 5 meters tall and some 60 tons, it was described at the time as the largest single sculpture ever deployed underwater. It was commissioned by the Bahamas Reef Environment Educational Foundation (BREEF) for a sculpture garden honoring its founder, Sir Nicholas Nuttall.
Where to see his work
All of Taylor's major works are accessible by snorkeling or scuba diving in Grenada, Mexico, the Bahamas, Lanzarote, Australia and Cyprus. For the classical figure he reimagines, compare the Atlas statue in Amsterdam, and browse Famous Sculptures.
Questions & answers
Where are Jason deCaires Taylor's underwater sculptures?
His underwater sculpture parks and museums are off Grenada, off Cancún and Isla Mujeres in Mexico (MUSA), in the Bahamas (Ocean Atlas), off Lanzarote (Museo Atlántico), on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and off Ayia Napa in Cyprus. Most can be visited by snorkeling or diving.
What are his sculptures made of?
They are cast in pH-neutral marine cement with textured surfaces, chosen so that corals, sponges and algae can attach and grow. Over time the figures become artificial reefs and change appearance as marine life covers them.
What is Ocean Atlas?
Ocean Atlas is a 2014 underwater sculpture by Taylor near Nassau, Bahamas: a crouching local girl who seems to support the ocean above her, recalling the Titan Atlas. About 5 meters tall, it was billed as the largest single sculpture ever placed underwater.