“Watson and the Shark”, reimagined by Rebecca Rose as a spatially collaged animation.
Out of 1600 nationwide submissions, Rebecca was one of 50 artists selected by the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC to reinterpret a work from the museum’s permanent collection. The animation was shared publicly across the museum’s social media and will be displayed inside The National Gallery of Art in 2026.
John Singleton Copley’s painting was chosen for its dynamic composition of peril, man-versus-nature tension, and historic depiction of a black main character as the central hero. Paying homage to the iconic work, the sailor & drowning boy are kept in color to symbolize his direct help & impact on the life saving attempt, an important connection depicted in the original painting. Other figures are shown in greyscale to illustrate their less impactful attempts.
Frequently playing with concepts of identity by removing faces, for “Watson and the Shark” only the sailor’s identity is kept intact. The original name and identity of the heroic life-saving sailor has been scrubbed from history while the other people’s names and identities remain preserved in historical records. This intentional choice flips the script: only his identity remains intact while everyone else’s are removed.
Throughout the animation, sunlit rays appear through stormy clouds above the sailor representing his divine touch in saving the boy’s life, as well as the glowing rope connecting the sailor to the drowning boy. The dizzying camera movements directly put viewers into choppy sea waters to emphasize the perilous nature of the scene.
To reimagine “Watson and the Shark”, the painting’s action layers were separated as 2d pngs to build a 3d collage of the painting. Depth between layers were added to create a parallax effect with assigned camera positions, zooms & movement to create the final animation. The original choral soundtrack is an AI generated a cappella based on lyrics from the 1749 hymn by Charles Wesley Forth “In Thy Name, Oh Lord I Go”, a hymn true to the time period of the actual historic event depicted in Copley’s painting. The soundtrack was then edited by hand to sync with visuals and hit climactic beats.
“Watson and the Shark”, 2026, spatially collaged digital animation by Rebecca Rose. 1/1 in two aspect ratios: 16:9 dimensions: 1920x1080, and 9:16 dimensions 1080x1920, 51mb, 1080p, duration: 0:27. Includes different aspect ratios to accommodate digital displays, made possible through Transient Labs using a TL7160 contract.
Rebecca Rose is an award winning collage artist exploring spatially collaged sculpts and animations. Her 20+ year body of analog, sculptural, and digital collage has received multiple major artist grants co-sponsored by The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation, The Joan Mitchell Foundation, The Willem de Kooning Foundation, The Andrew Mellon Foundation, The Ford Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropic. She has sold at Christie’s, has work in the Museum of Art + Light’s permanent collection, created work for The National Gallery of Art DC, The Norman Rockwell Museum, The Diego Rivera Museum, and was an artist in residence at The Joan Mitchell Center, Ox-Bow/SAIC, Selkie Rio Art Residency, Objkt Labs Cohort II, and AOTM AiR Cohort 1.
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