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About the Artwork
Leviathan II captures a recurring dream of being engulfed by immense, crushing tides—forces so vast they evoke awe and terror. To translate this overwhelming sensation, Cara Esten Hurtle used a petri dish of ink and alcohol, manipulating the flow beneath an analog video microscope. She recorded the movements through the screen of a black-and-white CCTV monitor, layering imagery with an analog video mixer before printing the final composition.
Mounted on reclaimed wood and enclosed in hand-distressed frames reminiscent of driftwood, each piece feels as though it’s been unearthed after a mythic encounter—something fragile washed ashore from a deep, subconscious sea.
About the Artist
Cara Esten Hurtle is an Oakland-based multimedia artist and former photojournalist whose work merges nostalgia, technology, and memory. Drawing from a background in storytelling and a love of analog electronics, her practice reclaims and reimagines outdated tools to explore personal mythologies and emotional residue.
Through CRT monitors, video mixers, petri dishes, and pigments, she crafts visual meditations on vulnerability, time, and transformation. Her pieces are often layered—both materially and emotionally—inviting viewers into quietly surreal spaces shaped by memory and emotion. When not in the studio, she lives with her cat Basil and works in software.