Kathrina Maribao chats with Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee on ocean observation, Texas oysters, and creating art inspired by years of being in the water.

Before walking into the depths, artist Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee sets the tone in ARTECHOUSE’s lobby with works inspired by two decades of scuba diving in her exhibition, TIME AND TIDE. Janavi is a marine conservation artist, writer, scuba diver, and fellow ocean lover. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she began creating art long before spending time in the ocean. Accidentally practicing prescience, she drew fish, sea stars, and shells as a young artist before knowing the ocean would become central to her life and to her work.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the ocean. The ocean embraces your body and spirit entirely. When it arrests all of your senses, it demands that you be present. This new exhibition at ARTECHOUSE gets close to that feeling! I kept thinking: “I AM THE OCEAN.” If you, like me, love the ocean, then you’ll likely appreciate Twilight Zone: Hidden Wonders of the Ocean at ARTECHOUSE. The twilight zone is the ocean’s mid-layer that stretches 200-1000 meters below the surface, and it actually has a huge influence on Earth. It helps regulate our climate and maintains a rich biodiversity, with much of it still left unexplored. 

When I walked into the lobby, the first thing my eye was drawn to was Oysters from Aransas Bay, a wall of watercolor oysters displayed from floor to ceiling that my eyes remained up with their gaze. I couldn’t help but admire the small details: soft yellow hues caressing the side of one oyster, and delicate purple “stripes” on another.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the ocean, but chatting with Janavi immersed me in both the wonder and weightlessness of being in water. The depths will always hold fascination; as always, we still have much to learn from its wisdom.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kathrina Maribao: What’s your earliest memory of the ocean? 

Janavi Mahimtura Folmsbee: I grew up in front of the Arabian Sea in Mumbai, so I don’t really remember a time when the ocean wasn’t part of my life. Whenever I felt lost or stressed, I would look at the water. Growing up with dyslexia in the ‘90s and early 2000s, at a time when it wasn’t really understood, I often needed somewhere I could find peace and solitude. The ocean became that sanctuary for me.

Some of my earliest memories are incredibly sensory. I remember the sound of the waves and the smell of the monsoon, and the seawater crashing into the lane below my home. I remember walking with my mother and our dogs along Marine Drive, the Queen’s Necklace. I really grew up with the sea.

Water was also connected to spirituality for me. I grew up Zoroastrian, where water is sacred and associated with purity and cleansing. Once a week, I would walk to the fire temple to pray. There was a well in the lane next to where I grew up, and I would look down at the turtles swimming below and make a wish. So even as a child, water existed for me as something physical, emotional, and spiritual.

But scuba diving changed my relationship with the ocean because suddenly I wasn’t only looking at it. I was inside it.

I think that was the beginning of the shift. The ocean had always been my sanctuary, but once I went beneath the surface, I wanted to document what I was seeing. And the more I documented it, the more I wanted to understand it. Eventually, understanding it also meant realizing that I wanted to help protect it.

KM: You’ve said there were several beginnings to your marine conservation work, with diving being where the ocean entered your art. Were you already making art when you started diving, or did the water pull you toward it?

JMF: I was absolutely already making art. I’ve really been making art for as long as I can remember. The irony is that even in my earliest drawings, I was already drawing fish, sea stars, shells, and things I would find along the shore. Water and nature were there long before I understood that they would become such a central part of my practice.

At 16, I had my first solo exhibition in Mumbai. My father had told me that if I really wanted to be an artist, I needed to show my work, and if I could sell my art, he would allow me to go to art school. So I did. I eventually went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where nature continued to be a huge part of what I was making. I would work from the lake, the botanical gardens, and the prairies around Chicago, and natural and oceanic forms kept finding their way into the work.

That’s where scuba diving really changed things for me. I had spent my life looking at water and finding sanctuary in it, but now I could physically enter these environments I had imagined. Suddenly I was surrounded by these extraordinary forms, colors, patterns, and ecosystems.

So scuba diving didn’t pull me toward becoming an artist. I was already an artist. 

KM: The exhibition talks about “looking closely and returning over time.” Is there a place you’ve dived again and again over the years?

JMF: There isn’t just one place. Returning to the same bodies of water over time has actually become a really important part of how I understand the ocean.

Mumbai is probably the longest record I have. I’ve spent my life looking at that shoreline, the mangroves, and the flamingos returning year after year. Then there are places I’ve returned to repeatedly as a scuba diver, particularly the Maldives, where I’ve been diving over a span of roughly 12 to 15 years.

I feel incredibly fortunate because I remember seeing parts of the Maldives that felt extraordinarily pristine. I remember seeing enormous table corals, some twice my size. It was mesmerizing to be surrounded by that scale of coral growth and abundance. I’ve returned to some of the same reefs and dive sites multiple times, including Maamigili, where I’ve been four or five times.

I remember an encounter with a whale shark around 2014 where there were maybe nine of us in the water. We simply followed it and observed it. It felt quiet and completely natural.

Returning years later can be very different. Now you can encounter multiple boats and dozens of snorkelers trying to see a whale shark at the same time. I’ve watched people at manta cleaning stations damage coral trying to position themselves for an underwater photograph. Social media has changed scuba diving in ways that I don’t always think are positive. It has made me think much more about conscious diving and about how we enter and behave within these ecosystems.

I’ve witnessed environmental change as well. I dove in Jamaica in 2017 and returned in 2025, and the reef I remembered had changed dramatically. There was extensive loss of coral and much more algae. It was honestly heartbreaking. At the same time, I was fascinated to see sea sponges surviving, and I saw small areas of new coral growth. I could hear life on the reef again, which gave me hope. The ocean doesn’t give you a simple story of either destruction or recovery. When you return, you begin to see both happening at once. That’s something one visit can never give you. 

For me, looking closely and returning over time is not only about documenting what we’re losing. It’s also about noticing what survives, what returns, and where new life is beginning.

KM: You’re painting oysters from different Texas bays, and they’re the same species but look completely different. What surprised you most about comparing them? 

JMF: I’ve been working with Coastal Preservation and Restoration, CPR, through my artist residency, and it’s been incredibly educational to learn about our natural oyster reefs. I first started by looking at oysters around the world and understanding that there are many different species, from Pacific oysters to oysters found in New York, Ireland, and other regions.

But what became really fascinating to me was Texas. Here, I’m looking at the same species of oyster across the different bays I’ve been studying, yet visually they can look remarkably different depending on where they’re growing and what’s happening in the water around them.

The oysters I’ve studied from Aransas and Copano Bays can feel almost delicate, while oysters from West Galveston Bay can be much darker, sometimes almost black. Looking at them side by side has been fascinating because even though they’re the same species, visually they can be so different.

For me, this is really an observational series. I’m not trying to use the appearance of an oyster as a scientific measure of the health of a bay. I’m looking closely, documenting what I see, and using those observations to create awareness around our Texas oysters and the ecosystems they are part of.

As an artist, I find them incredibly beautiful. I’m interested in the ornament that already exists in nature.

And as a public artist, I love taking something we might normally overlook because of its scale and making it monumental. I do that with things I encounter on coral reefs too. When you enlarge these forms, you’re asking someone to stop and really look at something they might otherwise walk past.

That’s why taking these intimate watercolor studies and transforming them into enormous murals makes sense to me. Suddenly, the oyster becomes majestic. You can’t ignore it.

KM: How do you think about entering and leaving the water, and did that shape how you wanted people to move through this show?

JMF: TIME & TIDE actually takes you through different zones of the ocean. The exhibition moves from the intertidal zone into reef systems and then into portions of the upper mesophotic zone, including depths that I have been able to physically experience through scuba diving.

Then Twilight Zone takes you deeper. Much of what we’re able to understand and visualize at those depths comes through scientific technology and the research and imagery of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 

What I find extraordinary is that these zones aren’t separate worlds. They’re part of one interconnected ocean. Every night, an enormous vertical migration takes place as marine organisms move upward from deeper waters toward the surface and then descend again. It’s one of the largest migrations on Earth, and most of us never see it happening.

So for me, the relationship between TIME & TIDE and Twilight Zone isn’t really about entering and leaving the water. It’s about following the ocean through depth. And when you come back into TIME & TIDE, you’re returning to that human scale of encountering the ocean through your own body, your own eyes, and observation.

KM: For readers who leave the show wanting to help, what’s one concrete thing they can do? 

JMF: I think the simplest thing is to become more conscious of the choices you make every day. You don’t have to be a marine scientist or a scuba diver to help protect the ocean.

If you’re going into the ocean, use reef-safe sunscreen. At home, recycle. Reduce single-use plastics wherever you realistically can. Carry a reusable water bottle and reuse things. Here in Texas, support sustainable local oyster farming and organizations restoring our natural oyster reefs. If you eat seafood, ask where it comes from and support local fisheries, restaurants, and vendors that care about responsible sourcing.

And when you go to the beach, leave it the way you found it, or even better. Pick up your trash. Don’t disturb wildlife. If you dig a hole in the sand, fill it back in. You can also volunteer. Support an oyster-shell recycling program, participate in a beach cleanup, donate to a conservation organization, or simply learn about the organizations doing this work in your own community.

You don’t have to change everything overnight. Just start somewhere.

KM: Last one, just for fun: what’s the most memorable creature (friend) you’ve ever met underwater?

JMF: It’s so hard to choose just one! I love night dives, and seeing an entire school of squid swimming in synchronization on a night dive is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever witnessed underwater. They move together, shimmering and changing color in the darkness. It’s completely mesmerizing.

I’ve also witnessed some funny little dramas. I once watched an arrow crab and a brittle star get into a fight. The arrow crab won and actually got a piece of the brittle star’s leg! It was a little morbid, but also fascinating. 

And then there are these moments of complete grace. I’ve had an entire school of dolphins naturally appear while I was at my safety stop and swim around me. You’re just suspended there, completely still, watching them move around you because they’ve chosen to be there.

You don’t need to touch anything or interfere with anything. You just observe. You let nature do its thing, and for a little while, you’re lucky enough to be there to witness it.

LATELY IN HOUSTON

Disco balls remixed. 🪩 Kacey Musgraves turned Toyota Center into a glittery Tex-Mex disco on her Middle of Nowhere tour. Think conveyor-belt stage, cute drone butterfly, Tejano flair, and a debut Selena cover ("I Could Fall in Love") that earned a collective sigh. Her message to the Houston crowd: "This is my middle of nowhere." Houston Chronicle

Somebody call 911! A tree service business in Houston called 9 JUAN JUAN, rescues cats stuck in trees (for free). You know what, hell yeah! TikTok

Untitled Art Houston stuns! A pricey craft fair that's gone in days, but Robert Boyd says Untitled Art was worth the hours. Highlights: tributes to Houston legends Floyd Newsum, Mark Flood, and Nestor Topchy, a pop-up record store, and a wheelchair shaped like a semi-truck. Best part? Small Texas galleries finally getting the spotlight. The Great God Pan Is Dead Substack

WEEKEND EVENTS

All weekend

• Houston Cinema Arts Festival at venues citywide

•  Bayou City Art Festival at Memorial Park

On your radar:

• Mrs. Doubtfire at Hobby Center

Thursday, 10/8

5:30pm-7:30pm, Workshop | Stop Working Nights & Weekends: The Ground Truth Workshop with Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, on Zoom. Free, registration required.

6pm-9pm, Art | Bennie Flores Ansell: Particle and A Wave opening at FLATS.

7pm, Music | Frequency: A Live Performance at Redbud Arts Center. Free.

7pm-9pm, Books | Author Talk: Everyday Movement with Gigi L. Leung at Asia Society Texas. $20, book included.

7pm-9pm, Music | Deep in the Heart: EZBand and Bombón at Discovery Green.

10:15pm, Film | HONEYJOON at River Oaks Theatre.

Friday, 10/9

6pm-10pm, Books | Beyond the Covers Book Fair at Social Beer Garden.

6:30pm-8:30pm, Crafts | Honey Art Cafe Clay Class Movie Night: Kiki's Delivery Service. $40.

Saturday, 10/10

9am-2pm, Market | Coffee & Records at Cool Dog.

11am-3pm, Market | Dr Pepper Babyyy Market at 3536 Navigation Blvd. Free.

11am-5pm, Market | Haunted Poké Market at POST Houston.

1pm-4pm, Art | Fall Community Celebration at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Free.

4pm-6pm, Jazz | Live Jazz featuring Moth Presents at Tadaima. Sold out.

Sunday, 10/11

10am-2pm, Market | A Sunday Morning Market in Autry Park.

12pm-9pm, Community | Filipino American History Month Festival at POST Houston. Free.

5pm, Film | Spooky Sunday Cinema: The Shining at Bar Daphne. Free.

6pm-9pm, Nightlife | The Boozy Bee by Brazos Bookstore at Johnny's Gold Brick. Free.

ON THE HOU(S)E Concierge

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