‘Sea of Dreams’ series focuses on sea, sirens, secrets

Chloe Chidester
In Motion Staff Writer

“The Atlantic was mine,” said Judith Fox during her recitation of a prose poem at the opening of her artist talk corresponding to her new exhibit, “Sea of Dreams,” a two-part series consisting of “Sirens” and “The Secret Kingdom.”

That phrase, along with the idea of serendipity, set the tone for the rest of the night. Fox’s work, a culmination of almost 13 years of photography, is the result of one moment of inspiration. One day, she found herself on a balcony on the eighth floor of a building looking out on the ocean and she knew she just had to take a picture.

In her Madorsky Theater discussion on Oct. 10, Fox explained that in essence, she is a storyteller. Her series “Sirens”
— now on display at the Southeast Museum of Photography — was shot over a period of four days, during which a group of nine young women came to the ocean, played around and then left. As soon as she saw them, Fox equated them with the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey. They were young, beautiful and had the potential to be dangerous up close. Using the women as inspiration, the photographer created stories in her mind that are told through her photographs, a group of 11 from a series of 23 total.

Although Fox declined to tell students exactly what those stories were, she urged them to make up their own stories and search for inspiration in the images, because to her that is what art is all about.

Her second series “The Secret Kingdom” was meant to be more of a challenge.

“I wanted it to be a sort of cosmic mystery,” said Fox. Because she left the horizon, the beach and the surf out of her photographs, it is hard to tell whether the picture is showing the ocean or the stars, which is exactly what Fox intended.

“Here at the museum, we always are looking for exhibits that are superb photography and significant photography, but that also engage ideas and things that all sorts of people in all sorts of disciplines right across the college and right across the community can be interested in,” said Kevin Miller, outgoing director of the Southeast Museum of Photography, following Fox’s talk. “Sea of Dreams” is an excellent example of all of those qualities and more.

The series covers a multitude of themes that reach across a broad spectrum of interests, from the ocean to Greek mythology.

The installation will run through Feb. 15 in the Southeast Museum of Photography. Also on exhibition is Alejandro Almaraz’s “Portraits of Power,” in which Almaraz layers source material from paintings and photographic portraits of world leaders into single images. Almaraz also presents work from his series titled “Places I’ve Never Been Present,” utilizing a similar layering method to create representations of these places through existing images found on the Internet.

Almaraz’s artist talk will include a panel discussion with photography critic and photo historian Vicki Goldberg and will take place on Wednesday, Feb. 4 from 6 to 8 p.m.