RAY CHARLES WHITE: READING THE WATER
Dates: November 4, 2000 – January 6, 2001
Opening Reception: Saturday November 4, 5–7 pm

Marcel Sitcoske Gallery is proud to present our second solo exhibition of work by photo-based artist Ray Charles White. With this new series of work on aluminum, White continues his exploration of the visual possibilities of water.

Reading the Water captures the transient and ephemeral nature of water, in all its many forms. These screenprints on aluminum were produced in collaboration with master printer Jean-Paul Russell of Durham Press. Both White and Russell are masters of their mediums, White having studied with Ansel Adams and Russell having worked with Rupert Jasen Smith, who printed for Andy Warhol. They have been pushing the limits of photography and printmaking for two decades. It is their technical precision and virtuosity that makes the work so visually rich and complex.

Because these works are printed on aluminum, they are able to capture fleeting moments of beauty with a unique delicacy and subtlety. The reflective quality of the aluminum lends these pieces an interactivity, producing fine variations in light and color. Beyond the visual beauty of the forms of the natural world, however, these pieces also draw our focus to their means of production. They have an architectural aspect, precisely because of their aluminum support. In White’s work, we are as drawn to the surface of the water as we are to the surface of the aluminum. It is in this way, as Vincent Katz notes in his catalogue essay, that White walks “a line between nature and technology.” The gallery will be publishing a catalogue in conjunction with this exhibition.