Katelyn Curtis Water

 

 

 

 

 

Comments about Edward Burtynsky's Showing at the Chrysler Museum

 

By Katelyn Curtis

 

 

 

 

Rice Terrace #3a #3b, Western Yunnan Province, China, 2012, Digital Chromogenic Print

 

This one was appealing to myself because I was forced to look closer and see the lines of the rise fields pull me across the page from one side to the other. Forced to realize how much work is involved in the processing of rice and how important water is to making and harvesting this crop. People have to maintain this everyday and must be tiresome work day in and day out. I keep searching this picture and finding more and more detail that sucked me into this picture for a solid fifteen minutes. I really enjoyed all the little houses spread throughout and seeing were rice had started forming more heavily than in another area.

 

 

VeronaWalk, Naples, Florida, USA, 2012, Digital Chromogenic Print

 

The repetition in this picture, the vastness, and the ever so slight differences about each house was intriguing and slightly overwhelming. Overwhelming that a place look so cookie cuter, exact, and exists as a community. The angle this picture was taken at moves the viewer up and then circles the eyes to the top middle, and then I started branching out to each street. During this time I was noticing the repetitive double garages, how most had pools, but not all, how everything was in proportion to one another, and thought of how these people lives play out day to day but most importantly, how water plays as an essential role to these people that reside in this community. These people live on these manmade islands, numerous pools, and a view like no tomorrow, but yet, rain and storms must impact them greatly and destroy this idea of perfection from time to time. Made me reflect on what they must encounter from season to season and how it might not always seems so ideal.

 

 

Manikarnika Ghat, Varanasi, India, 2013, Digital Chromogenic Print

 

Personally, this picture struck me the hardest and at first glance I did NOT expect it to move me the way it did. At first I was wondering why the men on the left were walking around in this muddy, unclear water as if it was nothing. Then I noticed all the wood back along the buildings, ALOT of wood at that. Still wasn't getting the whole picture so I was forced to keep searching for  more details to give me more. Then you realize that the color of orange is repeated all over the picture and I keep searching until my eyes land on two rectangular shapes on the stairs. Taking it all in, absorbing all the facts, and realizing that those squares are probably bodies, waiting to be burned and put into the water as part of some ritual that I am completely unfamiliar with culturally. I then had to restudy the picture, then again, seeing some people wearing shoes, the peoples expressions, the animals moving about. Coming to realize that water is super intertwined throughout these peoples life all the way to death and expands greater than my mind at first glance could comprehend. For me, this was a mind blowing picture that had moved me.

 

 

 

 

Burtynsky's work is different in the fact that the viewer can chose to look at this piece and think its beautiful and keep moving if that's what they want, but the true pleasure, is stopping and working through the picture and gaining the info that is given like little pieces to a treasure map. He is zooming all the way out, giving the viewer all the info they need to understand his view or reflections. This is a Perfect example on why a tendency of zooming in would overall give a completely different meaning and would altogether be a different piece of work all together.