By Nate Byerley
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 12, 1998

Water world

"Sea Change," the current exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography, brings together 18 internationally renown photographers to share impressions of a world that seems as far removed from our desert home as possible.

"Ocean in Fog," by Doug and Mike Starn, with its scotch-taped, thumb-tacked presentation, draws attention to both the ocean as subject and the photograph as medium. The looming shadow in the foreground implies a figure, a ship, a whale - something more than the sea - or something implying a relationship with the sea. The artists contrast this with the ambiguous relationship of sea and sky, deceiving the eye as to the presence of a horizon.

The horizon, perhaps the most popular relationship portrayed in "Sea Change," is beautifully investigated in Iain Stewart's series of prints entitled "Rhythm," "Shift" and "Return." The horizon bisects each of these nine prints, unifying the ensemble and reflecting the panoramic perspective of looking out on the ocean.

Busy photographing his display, Stewart paused to share insight on his work.

"I'm a landscape photographer," he explained. "The horizon is what drew me to the sea." For Stewart, the horizon represents "the point where understanding stops; the ultimate journey."

Stewart's series conveys a sense of time and narrative, evocative of Rothko's contemplative color fields and O'Keefe's impeccable color and form.

These artists recall Tom Baril's photographs as well. Baril's "Jones Beach 1996" seems modeled like clay, or rubbed delicately with steel wool. He incorporates the presence of the artist, not as merely an observer, but as an interloper in the interchange between image and impression.

Not all of the photographs attempt to render the ocean in an abstract sense; many view the ocean formally, relishing the concrete physical energy of water. John McWilliams, one of three artists to display prints in a vertical fashion, vividly displays the seasick, rollicking buoyancy of the ocean. McWilliams portrays changing environmental conditions, from overcast skies to rain and back, shifting the horizon away from level, a technique that Stuart Klipper's four panoramic color photographs attempt with less success. To Klipper's credit, however, the off-camber horizon complicates the notion of panoramic prints and truly transforms the viewer's understanding of the physical nature of the ocean.

Fernando De La Rosa and Liz Deschenes take a playful approach to photographing the sea. De La Rosa places the viewer in imaginative, amusing contexts, like inside the shell of a clam, or looking at the ocean with water in your eyes. Deschenes activates color, light and form in her series "Color Study #5, #11, #13, #7, #6" which could be entitled "The Sea as a Jell-O Mold." The perspective of the viewer bounces like the prints across the wall, the colors screaming for attention.

As many of us venture coastward this spring break, partaking of a little frolicking in the ocean (among other earthly delights), "Sea Change" can help us to embrace the idea that there is no one way to look at the water; the marine landscape is as sublime, energetic and playful as the terrestrial landscape we know so well.

"Sea Change" runs March 6,through May 24 at the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography. Call 621-7968 for gallery hours or more information.