Matthew Zory: Bodies of Sand, Desert Rhythms

Death Valley is home to the lowest point in the US and perhaps the hottest place on the planet. The photographs presented record this small corner of the world and speak to the relentlessness of nature on both a macro and micro scale.

The photographs in Bodies of Sand, Desert Rhythms explore the play of light, shape, and movement while providing the viewer a beautiful sense of warmth, isolation, solitude, and quiet drama. Landscapes are juxtaposed with images of mankind’s creations that leave fleeting records of our past: things that have short visual lives like the occasional human form in the shifting sands, the ripples almost like lines of liquid paint running across the paper. These shifting organic forms can be metaphors for our connection to the earth. They convey our relationship to the land with emotion, energy, and most importantly, impermanence.

These scenes of textures, shapes, and light lend themselves beautifully to the platinum/palladium printing process, a process that is as old as photography (1870s). The texture of the paper, and the glow and delicacy of the metals absorbed into the paper, reflects the experience of being there.

Making photographs, like making music, is a meditative experience—there’s only the present moment.