Photographer's Showcase: Svjetlana Tepavcevic -- The Sea Inside (Portraits of Waves)

photo-eye is pleased to announce the newest addition to the Photographers Showcase-- Svjetlana Tepavcevic and her portfolio The Sea Inside (Portraits of Waves)

The Sea Inside (Portraits of Waves) no. 181 -- Svjetlana Tepavcevic

 Perhaps it is only fitting that I write this post having only recently been evacuated from the Delaware coast in advance of Hurricane Irene.  Growing up along the Eastern Seaboard, I have always had a deep connection to the ocean and the power felt through its waves.

As a child I can recall attempting to find a pattern, order or structure to this awesome force of nature (in my case hoping to ride the best wave into shore). I fondly remember being tossed about, violently thrown back to land only to (in a daze) stagger back to the sea to ride again.  Tepavcevic's photographs pay homage to all of those feelings. 

Fraught with dialogues and complexities, waves are a metaphor for life. Mysterious and violent, at once they symbolize birth and destruction; force and fragility; chaos and peace. The same force that gives them life takes it away, often in the course of a human breath. Waves come and go, too fast for the eye to focus on their fleeting gestures, so our minds find comfort in their predictability and similarity. And yet, no two waves are ever alike -- they embody the idea of the infinite. -- Svjetlana Tepavcevic

The Sea Inside (Portraits of Waves) no. 3982 -- Svjetlana Tepavcevic

Tepavcevic is certainly not the first photographer to tackle the subject of the sea.  I am reminded of the calm serenity of Hiroshi Sugimoto's Seascapes or the chilling violence of Lisa Robinson's Oceana. But Tepavcevic's photographs feel infinitely more expressive to me, almost of a pen and ink nature.  To me they suggest a controlled randomness that only we can think to impose on nature. 

"Ocean waves are untamable, but I photographed them as if I could somehow tame them, as if I could calm them and find peace inside them," Tepavcevic says.

--Cliff Shapiro

See Svjetlana Tepavcevic's full portfolio The Sea Inside (Portraits of Waves) on the Photographer's Showcase here.

For more information on Tepavcevic's work, please contact photo-eye Gallery Associate Director Anne Kelly by email or by calling the gallery at (505) 988-5152 x202