Seascapes 1989-94

I was never supposed to emerge as an artist, let alone as an older gay man. Between 1984 and 1989 I was among many paralyzed with fear, the sudden loss of lovers and friends, waiting my turn to get sick and eventually die young. I spent a lot of time near the ocean, both Los Angeles and New York, studying figures in the water–swimmers, surfers–photographing their moments of play, sport, moments of solitude as well as companionship.

My still–static–images were intentionally dark and muddy, almost unreadable. Figures were anonymous, insignificant in size or detail in relationship to the mass of gray water and looming sky. Sometimes figures were alone, sometimes engaged with another if only by accident as the current brought them together.

In the early 90s I completed a film where I pointed my video camera at male swimmers frolicking in the Atlantic. Waves enveloped them, some resurfacing others times not. Some moved out of frame never to return, others slowly appeared, quickly left, then returned as if they were never gone. Occasionally a figure caught my gaze but as the tide swept them out, their attention quickly turned back to treading a seachange.

In editing I was able to apply an aesthetic of flattening the tones of black and white to gray.  Since images were now moving I could deal with time. I chose to slow them down as this allowed for the figures to move within the frame gracefully. They became dancers in a ballet, steps more precise in yet an unconventional stage sometimes caught off guard by a sudden smack of a wave.