About
The ocean calls to me. These photographs are my response
BIO
Jonathan Lipkin is a visual artist whose work is a meditation on the infinite, time, and perception. His most recent series The Translucence of Time is on view at 180 The Store in Tribeca, NYC
He holds degrees from Wesleyan University and the School of Visual Arts and maintains studios in New York City and East Hampton. His photographs have been exhibited and published internationally and are held in public and private collections. He is author of Photography Reborn (Abrams Books, 2004) and In the Realm of the Circuit (Prentice Hall, 2003). His artist's book Livingston County (Conveyor Books, 2011) was selected for inclusion in the IndyBooks Library. He has lectured extensively on photography and digital media.
CURRICULUM VITAE
[Curriculum Vitae .pdf file]ARTIST'S STATEMENT
[Artist's statement .pdf file]What is it about the infinite that so enchants us? I photograph the sea to capture, transform, and engage the mystery of the ocean. Printed at monumental scale and at a width twice their height, my photographs envelop the viewer. Their aspect ratio approximates our field of vision as we gaze at the vista of the ocean’s limitless horizon - the nothing you see when you forget you are looking, a place that is not a place. In my photographs space is collapsed and the image shows a flat plane with little distinction between foreground or background, a recreation of our the experience of the ocean and its unavoidable gravity.
The ocean is repetitive, ever changing, yet always the same. Waves crash steadily onto the beach as the horizon stretches limitlessly before us. This series examines our relationship with the natural world and our perception of infinity. I understand the ocean, and myself, by gazing to the sea through the translucence of time.
I spent my childhood at the seashore, in the water, or on the sand listening to the rhythm of the waves as I read or dozed. I have always had a powerful connection to the ocean. Yet, whenever I pointed my camera at the sea, my photographs invariably showed it inert - motionless in time - never revealing its alchemy, its mystery, its allure. This paradox created an emotional and intellectual puzzle. I needed to create order from the seemingly random, undulating, and interconnected structures of the rolling waters. By leaving the camera’s shutter open for several seconds, making several exposures, and combining them into a single image, I create photographs that, while not traditionally sharp or directly representational, suggest the fleeting nature of the sea. My photographs bear witness to events that can only be seen through an active photographic process - a manipulation of time to transform the eternal unremitting ocean.
