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| Michael Levin, Star Trails (Ise Bay), 2014, archival pigment print, 20 x 20 inches (image), edition of 9, $1800 |
The flat-files at photo-eye Gallery house a vast collection of photographs from over thirty extraordinary artists. Recently, while organizing our files in the new gallery location, we had a chance to re-visit some of their amazing works. One of the artists was Michael Levin.
Michael Levin’s work is enigmatic, graceful and hauntingly beautiful, much like a 19th century Romantic landscape painting. His talent thrives in open environments and captures the world around us in a way that reduces it to its true essence — light or the absence of it. The simplicity of Levin’s photography suggests rather than describes his subject, allowing the viewer to have a wholesome and unique experience. With an ethereal feel, his images are stripped from all distracting elements and reveal what the human eye is not capable of seeing. To evoke this effect, Levin exposes his subjects to long exposures. Furthermore, like all great landscape photographs, Levin’s images are not fortuitous. They are the result of careful planning and passionate persistence, as well as a collusion of atmospheric conditions and a contemplative state of mind.
A symbolistic aesthetic underlies Levin’s work. One could say that the abstract forms, lines and colors in his images correspond to inner states, emotions and ideas. In Star Trails (Ise Bay), a light Prussian blue sky reveals stars whose ever-motions forever tabulate the great passage of time. Several rocky stacks float on a hypnotic sea mist — two of them, known as the Meoto Iwa or Married Couple Rocks, are joined by a heavy rope, and, just like in Mendocino, California, these protruding land formations keep a compositional balance between the marriage of ocean and sky.
photo-eye Gallery has an extensive inventory of Levin’s work, a large amount of which can be browsed on our website or can be seen in person by appointment.
Learn more about Michael Levin's work in the below photo-eye interview.
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| Michael Levin, Mendocino, California, 2014, archival pigment print, 20 x 20 image inches (image), edition of 9, $1800 |
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For more information, and to purchase prints, please contact Gallery Director Anne Kelly or Gallery Assistant Patricia Martin, or you may also call us at 505-988-5152 x202