That tension between utilitarian purpose and artistic inspiration is the unexpectedly compelling strength of David Burdeny’s mesmerizing series of aerial abstractions called Salt.
In our hyper-connected age of GPS, Google maps and instant information, Bourdeny's large-format photographs of salterns occupy the hazy borderzone between the prosaic and the poetic.
Burdeny’s photographs aim to be more evocative and exalted than pedestrian. They seek to elevate our knowledge and experience of the world in more ways than one.
His images suggest the painterly expressiveness of Rothko, Still, Newman, Diebenkorn and late career Willem de Kooning. Salt manages to render into visual form the ineffable experience of drifting, of floating above it all, of being lost out beyond the humanly order of things.
Gertrude Stein is a household name. But do you know Claribel and Etta Cone?