Plaice
Title, date: Tissue Cartographies, 2025
Medium: Charcoal, acrylic, plaice skin micrograph print on canvas
height x width: 120x 100 cm
Description:
This work maps the hidden architectures of marine life through a painterly language shaped by scientific imaging. Drawing on micrographs of European plaice (Pleuronectes platessa) skin, the artist composes a constellation of cellular islands—evoking biological slides, seabed formations, and fragmented ecologies.
The title, Tissue Cartographies, reflects the dual nature of the piece: both anatomical and topographic. Each segment appears as a terrain under observation, its textures revealing the distinctive asymmetry of the plaice—an evolutionary trait in which both eyes migrate to the right side of the body—and hinting at the pressures facing this species in UK waters.
Though globally listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List, regional assessments have raised concerns about overfishing and habitat stress in parts of the Northeast Atlantic. Here, biology becomes a form of mapping: of survival, vulnerability, and adaptation. The fish’s tissue becomes a landscape, its microstructures transformed into a visual archive of shifting ecosystems.
Artist: Dr. Neelambari Phalkey
Fish Profile:
European Plaice - Pleuronectes platessa
Conservation status
The European Plaice is on the Greenpeace Red List:
‘Many stocks of plaice are under high fishing pressure in European waters. Exceptions are the Irish Sea stock and Bay of Biscay stock which are not overfished. Plaice are caught using bottom trawling, often by a method called beam trawling. This technique catches high numbers of other unwanted bottom-dwelling sea creatures until 70% is unwanted and thrown back dying. Large, mature plaice is now very rare.’ (Greenpeace)
The MCS have mixed ratings with 2 areas of the North Sea rated as Best Choice. 6 areas in the English Channel and Irish Sea seen as areas that Need Improvement. 3 areas in the Celtic seas and 1 in the English Channel are Best to Avoid.
The IUCN assessed the European Plaice in 2022 and gave it a rating of Least Concern.