Michael Levin: Reveal

Reveal

Michael Levin

Watermark Gallery

Between December 2, 2006 and January 31, 2007 twenty-two of Michael Levin’s photographs hung in Watermark Gallery located in Houston. As you walked into the gallery, the photographs were hung on the wall to your immediate right. They lined the right side of the gallery as well as a portion of the back wall. The sizes of these large black and white prints ranged from 6” x 18” to 34” x 34”. Levin focuses on landscape photography, primarily using a large format film camera. Separating himself from traditional methods, he then scans the film and edits the image in Photoshop. Levin has these files printed digitally on color paper, rather than on fiber-based silver gelatin paper.

By his own admission, Michael Levin seeks to achieve a painterly quality in his photographs. He concentrates on the intrusions into nature (i.e. piers, docks, levies), and creates images in which the intrusions appear not only natural, but also beautiful. Levin’s work shares many similarities with that of the popular landscape photographer, Michael Kenna.

The quintessence elements in the majority of his compositions are sky and/or water. Utilizing exposures lasting up to twenty minutes, Levin transforms water into clouds and in doing so breaks down a seemingly picturesque landscape to create a paradisiacal image. In his photographs, the natural elements overpower the man-made. He has succeeded in transforming the man-made intrusions from an inappropriate eyesore into a graceful tableaux appearing as seamless and natural as nature itself. He has captured a quiet solitude, an effect that I would describe as peaceful.

Tending to facilitate transcendence, these photographs become Romantic in nature. For instance, Steel Pier, 2005 is an image created underneath a pier, but this viewer interpreted the image as an interior room with a long hallway. The critic Marjorie Perloff, in her essay “What Has Occurred Only Once”, views the punctum (the emotional impact experienced when looking at a photograph) as achieved when the viewer is able to turn the object back into a subject. The pier is the object in Steel Pier, 2005 but by giving the pier a different orientation, viewing the underside, he turns the pier into the subject and in doing so Levin epitomizes transcendence and achieves his painterly aspiration.

To view more of Michael Levin's work visit his website: Michael Levin

posted by Amy G @ 5:14 PM