Lee County’s most famous artificial reef will soon become an underwater art gallery.

In May, Austrian photographer Andreas Franke plans to hang a series of photographs on Mohawk Veterans Memorial Reef, thus creating a temporary art exhibit only accessible to divers.

Helping on the project will be the Lee County Division of Marine Sciences and Joe Weatherby, founder of Reefmakers LLC, a Key West-based company that specializes in sinking ships as artificial reefs.

On July 2, 2012, county scientists and Reefmakers scuttled the 165-foot World War II Coast Guard cutter Mohawk 30 miles off Redfish Pass.

The ship has become the premier dive site in Southwest Florida.

“The great thing about having Andreas’ project here is that Lee County has a large and active arts community, and project will bring the arts and diving communities together,” said Mike Campbell, head of the county’s artificial reef program. “You don’t think of an artificial reef as art, but that’s what Andreas is doing, turning the Mohawk into a piece of art.”

Franke’s Mohawk exhibit would be the third of his Sinking World projects — previous projects were on the 523-foot former U.S. warship Hoyt S. Vandenberg, scuttled in 2009 off Key West, and the 365-foot Greek freighter Stavronikita, scuttled in 1978 off Barbados. Click here to read more.