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“The artist’s intention is not exactly to reveal the world beneath the surface, but, rather, to deepen the mystery”
-Thomas Farber, from introduction of Through a Liquid Mirror
"Haunting and mercurial, the underwater photographs of Wayne Levin surprise us with their black and white density. Levin takes us into the froth and murk and deep as we might see it through half closed eyelids, or through dreams and imagination."
-Patricia Holt, San Francisco Chronicle
"The photographer depicts for us the subtle and convincing tonalities of a foreign reality just beneath the surface. A glowing world of light poured into water, of silver clarity and dim, depthless mystery.”
-Curt Sanburn, Honolulu Weekly
“These subtle black and white photographs illuminate an entire world: Its space, its inhabitants its weight and its visitors. We encounter states of wonder, fear, and exhilaration; a profound sense of the sublime."
-Linda Connor, noted photographer & professor, San Francisco Art Institute
“In the more environmental work, Levin freezes motion into patterns that are transposed into their own sense of visual rhythm. For example, when a swirling of water above and corresponding patterns of light and shadow undulating below meet at an undetermined horizon line near the middle. This is as articulate, elegant, and beautiful an abstract visual statement as can be made."
-Joseph Walentini, Abstract Art Online
"I have carried on a love affair with black and white photography all my life, and this collection is the most stunning I have seen. Think of Cocteau’s technique with film and imagine capturing the world of water on paper."
-Deborah Clow, Editor, Northern Lights
"There is a photo of a school of gray hammerheads lurking in the haze behind the dark silhouettes of some reef fish. That says more about the vastness and beauty and danger of the sea than any essay ever written."
-Steve Hawk, Editor, Surfer Magazine
"Mr. Levin distinguishes himself from the by-no means-unaccomplished herd of underwater photographers in that he doesn’t content himself with documenting nature in all its glory. Instead, he revels, albeit with a certain circumspection, in the staggering mystery of its rhythms."
-Mario Naves, New York Observer
"But it is not just the sea world of athletes and fish that was of interest. Levin transcends the technical and narrative aspects of the work to evoke awe and mystery. We detect a hint of the sublime and a sense of our own place in the vastness of the universe."
-Rex Weil, Art News
"By photographing points of contact between the manmade and natural world, he explores the complicated relationship between humans and captive marine life, and the peculiar draw of life below the surface. The ocean, he has noted, evokes for him the obsession of science fiction with another dimension that coexists in the same space as our own
or parallel to it; the two divided by an invisible membrane."
-Wendy Lesser, Editor, The Three Penny Review
"His unique black and white underwater images create a surreal view of the world, one that continues to fascinate and hold us captive to its endless beauty."
-Alysia Earle, Camera Arts
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