The future choices we make about our coasts and oceans are not just technical decisions about peripheral matters. They are decisions about who we are, what we value, what kind of world we want to live in—the world our children and grandchildren will inherit. The stakes are very high.

- Gary Griggs, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences & Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, UC Santa Cruz 

The root causes of sea level rise are as complex, nuanced and dynamic as are the debates about our part in its acceleration and remediation. In the last 150 years, coastal cities have gone from agricultural centers and ports of trade to destinations for leisure and full-time retirement, which has put enormous stress on the environment and the communities that inhabit them, human, plant and animal. According to the UN, by 2050 more than 3 billion people are expected to live in port cities built on low lying elevations with an increased risk of rising sea levels, severe storm-surge flooding, damage from high storm winds, and land subsidence. By 2070, 20 of the 130 largest global port cities like New York, Miami and Los Angeles will have approximately 88 million people at risk. A 2024 article in Nature reported that the United States has more than 30% of its population residing in coastal cities, generating an estimated annual revenue of US $3.8 trillion, and consequently, significant socioeconomic losses from climate-induced sea level rise. 

Artists are in a unique position to bring awareness to issues of great urgency like this by reaching the hearts and minds of viewers, not just with information but with the poetic force of their creativity. For this exhibition, I hope to achieve that by transporting viewers with paintings that portray the splendor of what we stand to lose by our inaction. With the three multi-media works, I explore not just the visual, but sound, moving image, sculpture, and audience participation in order to bring these issues more palpably forward.

The genesis of The Unintended Blues project began in early 2024 when, flying back from a trip to the Yucatan one evening, I looked out my window and saw the extraordinary patterns formed by the infiltrating tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. I was immediately struck not only by its beauty, but by the graphic clarity of one of our greatest existential threats – that of rising sea levels. I took numerous photos and knew that these would become source material for future paintings. Over time, as I read more deeply about our coastlines and about the various factors that contribute to their rapid change, I decided to embark on a  project to document vulnerable shorelines on all three coasts of the Continental US through aerial landscape paintings, which ended up including images of Washington, California, Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, New York and New Jersey. I later added a series of paintings based on photographs of melting icebergs in the Northwest Passage near Greenland. As an exhibition, I hope these paintings along with the multi-media works present viewers with a way to engage with one of the most pressing issues of our time with a sense of urgency and a desire to take action.  

I am extremely grateful to the many collaborators and supporters who have made this project possible. 

- Leslie Wayne

 Leslie Wayne is an artist whose work lies at the intersection of abstraction and representation. While she’s most known for her highly dimensional abstract paintings based on geology, her recent aerial landscapes conjure up deep questions about the American landscape, its mythologies and the environment. Wayne has exhibited nationally and internationally, and her work is in numerous public collections. She has received awards from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Francis J. Greenburger Foundation, Pollock Krasner Foundation, NYSCA, and NYFA, among others. She is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery.

Having the opportunity to present this project at a venue with the capacity to reach over 30,000 visitors is a huge honor and I am extremely grateful to numerous people for its success and completion:

Anna Raginskaya and Don Porcaro for making this project possible in all ways. 

The entire staff of LMCC Arts Center at Governor’s Island for their tireless and enthusiastic support.  

Jack Shainman, Tamsen Greene, Irem Ikizler, Ruth Phaneuf and Nate Francis at Jack Shainman Gallery for their support of this project.

Michael Lantz, MaloTek Productions for video production, editing and installation. 

Giacomo Belletti and Laura Crosta for videography. 

Vincent Catanese, Moran Tug for donating used marine lines. 

Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Director of the Institute of Marine Sciences, UC Santa Cruz for sharing his knowledge and resources, and for allowing me to use his photograph of the California coast.

David Landreth for flying over the Gulf Coast and photographing for me.

John Goldsmith for allowing me to use his photographs of the Northwest Passage and Greenland.

Michael Davies, river, coast, port and waterway Engineer and President, Coldwater Consulting, Ottawa for spending time to talk with me about the complexities of sea level rise.

Alexis Aperloff Giles, Shimon Attie, Joseph Colella, Harold Crooks, Zoe Dictrow, Tina Freeman, Idee German, Giselle Heitzner, Lisa Hoke, Deborah Luster, Bruce Lymburn, Nancy Marcott, Medrie MacPhee, Janet Phelps, Mari Spirito and Gregory Wessner for their resource sharing, advice and moral support. 

And Pepper Fajans - for getting the work in and up, Blaze Zidell and Moze Halperin - for getting the word out, and ALMA Communications for the extra mile.

- Leslie Wayne

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The Unintended Blues is presented by LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) as part of the 2026 River To River Festival.

Funding for The Unintended Blues is provided by The Deborah Buck Foundation, Morgan Stanley Blue Rider Group and New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant. Special thanks to Anna Raginskaya and Jack Shainman Gallery.

Funding for the River To River Festival is provided by The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, Howard Gilman Foundation, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and The Robert Lehman Foundation. River To River is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.