Lynn Davis Iceberg XIV, 2007

#somereallygoodones, #lynndavis, #iceberg

Photographic prints by Lynn Davis are often massive, described by auction houses as “mural-sized”; the impact feels life-sized. They behave like wonders of the world, towering and weighty, blazing white shapes — light blue in color — contrasted with darker skies or seas. The photographs report a moment of honor with the artist facing off against something much larger than herself, she seems to try fitting it into her consciousness: eye and soul. This is an “ecstatic” rather than “decisive” moment. Her engagement is formal and intense. She makes the E.M. Forster connection in the wild, in the void, as if against the odds.

These works are awesome; we respond with regard, apprehension, possibly fear. She is inviting us to consider scale and natural beauty.

She offers up gendered readings. Her subject matter can be imagined as male or female or both. She likes line and symmetry, reflection and contrast, and some surface. The squareness of the large format camera gives her restraint. There is no excess beyond the massive subject matter. Her vision is exact.

Davis had a level of visibility at the height of the Robert Mapplethorpe/Peter Hujar years. She may be the one whose work endures.

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