A riptide is a culmination of currents. It takes your feet out from under you and pulls you out to sea. Old photographs create a riptide of their own— you get pulled back into their era. You start to see the faint colors of a dress, hear the sounds of a cocktail hour, smell the salt and cigarette air. Suddenly you’re there, out in the open waters of another time. The hot, sun-soaked sands of Hermosa Beach, the serpentine Mulholland Drive on the cliffs of Malibu, the monolithic redwoods of the central coast— you can feel them, hear them, smell them. The last sixty years evaporate. Riptide Nostalgia takes you into a golden haze, to a carefree world of picnics by the sea, family vacations, and dates at a soda parlor set to the music of the Beach Boys. Faded monochrome evolves into glistening technicolor. A sense of history is alluded to through salt prints, and the application of hand colored elements evoke sensations of a living, effervescent past.
hand-colored sea salt paper prints, 2017.
