Sea, Shore, Sky and Ice: Nicholas Whitman and Susan Schultz

June 6 - July 8, 2012

Susan Schultz collects, carefully examines and recreates beach detritus in delicate porcelain. Her sculptures are strikingly realistic–it is difficult to believe that they are not cast from life—but with her meticulous recreation, each item becomes a meditation, steeped in deep thought and careful consideration. Schultz then curates her objects into poetic collections, composed with 16th and 17th century still life paintings in mind, but still with a playful haphazard sense of being washed up onshore. The stark white porcelain is transformative- giving the objects a sense of preciousness and stillness. Schultz is particularly interested in examining these objects as artifacts of time passing, and the influence of humans and nature on each other and on themselves.

Nicholas Whitman’s photographs explore the natural illustrative quality of shoreline rocks, waterbodies, and icebergs. His images isolate moments to signify the passage of time, the largest timescale we have to consider- geological time. Rippling water surfaces, looming masses of glowing ice, pink granite slicing through metamorphic rock, paint a picture of our ever-evolving surroundings. The push and pull of ice and water over rocks is not unlike that of a paintbrush over a paper, and many of Whitman’s bold compositions bear likeness to abstract expressionist paintings. Others are quieter, more ethereal, highlighting the elemental tension between solidity and transience of ice and stone.

Sea, Shore, Sky, and Ice is contemplation on our ever-changing landscape. The work of these two artists, though beautiful and quiet, speaks boldly about human scale. In a literal sense, the viewer becomes aware of his or her scale in relation to Schultz’ delicate porcelain objects, and Nicholas Whitman’s images, particularly those of enormous monumental icebergs. The works also address scale in terms of time- the relatively short scale of our human lifespan in relation to that of our global one, and in contrast- the vast scale of the legacy we leave on our planet.

"enthralled, delighted, and disturbed all at the same time" - Don Wilkinson, Standard-Times, July 1, 2012. Read the full review here.