About
The Claw Finds My Nature
It's the inevitable spirit of the artist seeking genuine inspiration. Four decades inside a linear environment has evolved the deafness between the ears and a fermenting smell eroding the spirit. An instinctual alarm impulsed me on a flight back to that primordial island, in the middle of the north Atlantic. A seed of memory from a decade ago grew into a monstrous claw inside my instinct. Arrogantly reptilian brewing in the lower chambers of the cortex fueling the impulse mechanisms. The accelerating sensation of flight reeled back the Mr. Hyde landscape into the foreground with vivid flashbacks of the strange encounters. Confrontations which have spiraled my senses from my familiar perception of reality. But my insatiable curiosity loves a challenge even if they are interwoven by risks.
A Stranger In A Strange Land
The indelible experiences from a decade ago were bewildering and had unnerve the native city dweller… Yet, deeper inside my childhood, hovering thunderstorms that dispersed frantic pedestrians like scurrying ants had always thrilled my imagination. So, how can I ever forget that blinding snowstorm simultaneously opposed by the clear blue skies directly to the right taunting my perception? Not to mention being shocked by the violent abrupt jolting of the car desperately accelerating to avoid the currents of flood water drowning the road. Just as we emerged from that chaos, a group of wild Icelandic long haired horses galloped in play across the snowy landscape. I was truly smitten by this reality of an animated fairy tale while a noisy group of jostling sheep crossed the road expressing their quaint dispositions. After a day of drama, we finally arrived on the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon which is desolate in the freezing month of November. Inland the lake consisted of carving glaciers while we stood on the opposite side of the shore, consisting of sand and rock that the glacier pilled up during the earth's history of the ice age. My Icelandic friend meditated harmoniously in zen by the edge of massive floating icebergs as meltwater intermittently resonated the solitude. Though the surround sound of silence simply amplified the ringing in my ears; probably an affect of urban noise pollution… Maybe in another stage of time, that bliss can me mine as well. In moments the arctic light diffused the stark smoky volcanic planes, it was intoxicating. During this hypnotic moment of ambient light, I obliviously sprinted across the mounds of lava only to be paralyzed by a strangely viscous grip. It was black quicksand slowly devouring me alive! These elemental forces of nature accented by free spirited animals lured my return inside this geological mystery land.
In hindsight, I'm grateful that these impressions had spirited me seek chance encounters. The impulse driven adventures through Iceland evoked a childhood memory of mine of exploring the Natural History Museum in utter fascination for a thrill amongst the dinosaurs. I steered my attention for the dinosaur's feet which ignited me to imagine being pinned under its claw… Iceland engaged that primal wiring to spark to life again. The call of the wild for me, was brewed into the claw wrapped in instinct below the ears.
Iceland On The Edge »
Storms In Black Ash »
STORMS IN BLACK ASH: Spirit of Nemesis - Artist Statement
My photographs capture the rare phenomenon of the transient volcanic ash on Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull glacier shortly after the 2nd volcano eruption April 2010.
I took a helicopter up towards the eruption site in June 2010, a few weeks after the eruption. As we flew, I experienced a gasping attack of hyperventilation and bewilderment induced by the aftermath of the cataclysmic eruption, which had annihilated the region into massive chars of blackened ice. My adrenaline soared as we flew towards rising clouds of smoke thickening a crown above the crater. The breath of the atmosphere possessed an electricity, and the power was irrefutable. The eruption's upheaval, seared the glacier's pristine surface into avalanches of jagged black ice. Charred and smoky, the scorched landscape evoked a multitude of questions to form.
Volcanic ash a remnant of the fiery eruption manifested on the ice. The presence of ash reverberated, but, shifting the eruption to post cataclysmic topography. The glacier polarized into infinite optical illusions. The presence of ash transformed the virtuous white glacier into the spirit of nemesis. Tons of meltwater expanded inside the deep unstable fractures stirring a reactive turbulence to occur. Veins of freezing meltwater released violently over the ice flooding the region. The jagged crevasses were brittle from the forces of expansion. The excessive speed of melt formed deep chasms, disturbing the continuity of the ice structure. Towering by the crater are the seracs, emerged by the cataclysmic forces, towering precariously around 500 feet. Ready to become a thundering violent avalanche. While the surface had labyrinths of mazes carved characterizing more instability on the ice. The evidence of destruction moves onto land, combustive internal pressure torn out a new landscape. Those forces pushed the glaciers tongue onto land, staged in front of enormous kettles holes bombed out by immense ice sheet exploding off the tops of the mountain which also drained the entire lake that flowed in the region.
In another few weeks the wind currents whisked the ash, while rain rinsed them toward the ocean and snow buried the rest inside the crevasses. The rarity of the event is explicit to an aftermath of a sub glacial eruption and specific affects within the chemistry of magma and water.
The presence of volcanic ash created a distinctive presence of dichotomy on the glaciers topography. The contrast being highly aesthetic engaged me with its fragility. On the other hand, with it's powerful reactivity as a shadow of destructive forces. This unusual phenomenon occurs once, maybe, in a lifetime. Glaciers are an immensely complex infrastructure which nurtures all of life. The forces of nature govern the planet within a sacred equilibrium, which presently is evident that humanity has crossed natures finely tuned boundaries.