Standing Waves

Digital C-Prints, 127 x 190cm, 2007, editions of 5

...  "What we see in these immaculately detailed images is astounding. Under the extreme foreground illumination that produces an infinitely deep night-black backdrop, the water is at once solid, frothy, and crystalline. Droplets act as lenses, breaking up and refracting the intense white light that captures their movements. “Water’s Edge” was shot in April of 2007: there are still pieces of ice in the water, though as with everything here, their size is anyone’s guess. There are other reorientations. Coming into the downstairs gallery from the street, the prints read as black and white. But the water’s greens soon saturate our vision. The waves are arrested and silent here, but one can feel their frantic dynamism and hear the range of sound experienced by Wright as he undertook this dangerous project.

There is no more mediated concept in the human repertoire than that of “nature.” Wright subtly manipulates the perceptual cues we rely on to make this point. In Standing Wave # 11, the flashes throw a deep shadow behind a wall of water. Shadow gives us depth and a tenuous orientation in the image. In another instance Wright allows us to see the merest silhouette of trees standing on the opposite shore of the gorge, producing “perspective” of the most fragile sort. When I asked him how far away this shoreline was, he really couldn’t be sure." ...

                                                                           read more of this review by Mark Cheetham