Image: Cater News Agency

Andres Amador has only a few hours to work before the tide sets in. He must wait for a full moon when the waves have fully receded, giving him the space and time to execute his sand etchings. Using just a garden rake, Amador inscribes monumental doodles along the banks of beaches, giant compositions of overlapping lines and vaguely geometric figures which originate from tiny sketches he’s prepared in a notebook beforehand. The largest of his works span areas of 300 X 500 feet and larger, taking several hours and workers to complete; yet despite their size and the great effort dedicated to their realization, the tableaux won’t last through the day. As the shoreline becomes engulfed by the falling sea, they vanish just as fast as they had come. Click through for more images.

Image: Cater News Agency

The San Franciscan native says he uses Google Earth to scout for beaches, sandbars, and coastlines which exhibit the aesthetic properties he looks for in a canvas, namely, a rich context with distinct topographical features that could activate and inform the design to be. Accordingly, the resultant carvings work within the same global format and can only be completely assessed from orbit. Given their massive size, the intricate patterns, which resemble the sinuous lines and the morphological distortions of Roberto Burle Marx’s densely layered garden designs, seem to extend in all directions, sliding under the sea and rocks which bound them to encompass the entirety of the planet’s surface. Amador reinforces this reading when he likens the designs to ripples in water and cracks in mud–similarly infinite and extendable across the globe–only scaled-up, like ancient markings which reveal themselves momentarily before being washed away only to resurface at another time and place.

All images, unless otherwise noted: Barcroft Media