Sea slug Nembrotha Purpureolineata

The story behind Sea slug

His first commission. A friend asked for a painting of a sea slug, and Bert Ernie, for reasons nobody can now explain, said yes.

He had no interest in sea slugs. He still doesn’t. The source was a small, soft photo out of a magazine, blurry enough that the slug looked out of focus in its own portrait. He painted it anyway, finished it, and handed it over.

The friend decided he didn’t want it.

It’s hard to argue with him. This is filed under realism, and that’s generous. The slug looks like it was cut out of a magazine with blunt scissors and glued down. The orange gills on its back, which in the photo are feathery and frilled, have come out as a sort of flat starfish. The background is worse. The soft coral and rock of the original have turned into brown and grey blotches, dabbed on with what looks like the end of a sponge, and there are black shapes lurking around the edges that might be shadow or might be holes in the canvas. Even the man who painted it can’t tell you which.

There’s no clever idea hiding in it either. It’s just a slug, done badly.

The only interesting thing about it is the slug itself. Those loud colors are a warning: the animal is poisonous, and when something bothers it, it oozes toxic blue slime. All dressed up and dangerous, and still nobody wanted it. Which is either a fitting subject or a very bad omen.

It wouldn’t be the last time a commission ended this way.

Source image of realism painting Sea slug Nembrotha Purpureolineata