Wayne Levin « Muybridge's Horse

Wayne Levin

Wayne Levin’s underwater photographs are different than any I’ve seen before, and not just because they’re black and white. They feel timeless – at the same time prehistoric and futuristic – and raw, making me think more about the individual lives of the creatures pictured and less about how pretty they are to look at. Levin’s website showcases hundreds of images that elicit intense wonder and amazement for the ocean and its inhabitants. I find myself spending minutes with each photograph, looking at every detail; the light and textures of the ocean truly do feel out of this world.

From the artist’s statement: I feel that the Ocean is an entity of incredible power, and every time I enter the ocean I am very clear that I am putting myself within a world that is far more powerful and vast than me, and it is only by its grace that I return. When I descend beneath the surface, I feel like I am Alice passing through that looking glass into a totally different world. Or am I Cocteau’s Orpheus passing through the mirror into the underworld? When I descend beneath the surface I am in a world with different rules, different truths. Things look different, light acts differently, gravity pulls differently. One can fly, or at least float over the landscape, or seascape. When I descend into this wonderland, I want to make images, not to explain or clarify that world, but to deepen the mystery.