WITHIN THE WAVES — A Work in Four Movements
Lake Superior photographer Craig Blackock’s work has undergone a metamorphosis. Like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, these new abstract images shimmer with bold shapes and colors belying their previous manifestation.
The entire exhibition is created from photographs made for his book, Light Waves, Abstract Photographs of Reflections from Lake Superior, which make up the exhibition’s first movement. For subsequent movements, Blacklock uses techniques that took him months to master, doing a multigenerational dance between newly-developed AI sharpening and enlarging, and traditional editing software.
The metaphors Blacklock explores begin with his musings on the dismaying and disorienting state of the world during the start of the pandemic in Light Waves, which leads to our desire to escape into nature in Dream Waves. Encroachment brings us up to our present inflection point: whether we will continue down a path of growth and environmental destruction, or be able to reverse course in time to mitigate the worst ramifications of out-of-control population growth and consumption. The final movement, Lamentations, looks at a theoretical future, warning us of what inaction may look like.
Opening Reception and Artist Talk: Thursday, August 8, 2024, 5 to 7 pm.
Son of pioneering color nature photographer, author and environmentalist, Les Blacklock, Craig Blacklock grew up with a camera in hand. He often accompanied his father on photography trips throughout the American West and most often to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. After college, Craig joined with him in co-photographing several books and dozens of calendars.
Craig's artistic practice is intrinsically linked to the interface of land and water in wilderness areas—most often Lake Superior. Since 1976 his artwork has evolved from large-format color landscapes depicting what these places looked like; to black and white nudes creating an emotional connection to the landscapes by expressing what it felt like to be within their environs; to increasingly non-representational imagery untethered from context.
Abbreviated Resume:
EXHIBITIONS
One or two-person shows. Selected from many:
2022 The Museum at the Palm Beach Photographic Centre, West Palm Beach, FL
2019 Watershed Gallery, National Eagle Center, Wabasha, MN
2018 Minnesota Marine Art Museum, Winona, MN
2018 Phipps Center for the Arts, Hudson, WI, 2018
2004 Minnesota Center for Photography, Minneapolis, Minnesota
2004 Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, Minnesota
2004 Minnesota Center for Photography, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1992 Polaroid Corporate Headquarters, Cambridge, MA
Group Exhibitions (selected from many)
2024 Absolutely Abstract, Modern Visual Arts Gallery, Bethlehem, PA
2023 Joseph Nease Gallery, Duluth, MN
2014 Crary Art Gallery, Pennsylvania; Wilderness at 50