The Photographer’s Eye Gallery will host an exhibit featuring works by three artists, William Bay, Stefan Frutiger and Terri Warpinski, whose focus is our environment. The show will open on July 12 at 11 a.m., with a talk at 4 p.m. by the photographers, and will close on Aug. 2. The artists and works featured in this exhibit are: • William Bay and “Parts Per Million,” which explores the severe pollution in the Tijuana River, where untreated sewage from Mexico flows freely into the Pacific Ocean. • Stefan Frutiger and “Forgotten Waters, which examines environmental injustice and water scarcity across the American Southwest. • Terri Warpinski and “Ground / Water,” part of a larger work, “Restless Earth,” which explores the intersections of natural, cultural and personal histories. William Bay grew up in Imperial Beach, a city on the U.S.-Mexico border, where he developed a deep appreciation for the cultural interplay between the two countries. However, there was a dark side, as untreated sewage flows freely from Mexico into the Pacific Ocean through the Tijuana River, where tests have revealed contaminants in the water that make it unhealthy to swim, and sometimes even breathe. Bay began shooting and printing his photographs in high school and has never looked back. His work focuses on border and environmental issues, as well as life in Baja California, capturing both the challenges and quiet beauty of the region. Bay characterizes “Parts Per Million” as an attempt to combine art, science and activism to bring about change. His black and white ocean images are each named for one of the contaminants found in the river. “Arsenic,” for example, is named for an element present in the water at 72 times above healthy levels, “a juxtaposition of beauty and disease,” Bay says. “The goal is to bring awareness, to expose this so the public knows what’s in our water, and to say that the current population has completely outgrown the capacity of the border treatment plant that was built in the ’90s,” Bay says, adding that only cooperation between two national governments can solve the problem, and building public awareness is a key to that solution. Stefan Frutiger was born in Switzerland but has made San Diego his home. He is drawn to the vast, arid American Southwest, where he creates his images. “I have a deep passion for the environment,” Frutiger says, describing himself as an outdoor person. He combines his love of the environment and the desert landscape with photography, to reveal to others what he sees. “In the American West, I encountered landscapes bearing the unhealed scars of resource extraction and environmental racism,” he says. “This contrast motivated me to document these enduring impacts.” Frutiger’s mixed-media images examine the damage done by uranium mining on the Navajo Nation. Aerial images illustrate the Southwest’s diminishing water supply, showing agricultural aqueducts full of water running alongside the Colorado River’s natural trickle. “Beautiful composition draws viewers in, but the content reveals harsh realities,” he says. Terri Warpinski explores the complex relationship between personal, cultural and natural histories through images that are large in concept, size and impact. Warpinski spent 32 years teaching at the University of Oregon and is now a professor emerita dedicated to a full-time practice as a studio artist, curator and art activist. She has returned to her native northeastern Wisconsin, where her multifaceted art examines land preserves and conservation areas as they undergo a process of re-wilding and ecological recovery. This is the inspiration for “Restless Earth.” Her “Ground / Water” images are part of this exploration, and include works printed on mulberry silk habotai that are seven feet high. These shimmering nature scenes spill from the wall onto real rocks and toward the viewer, like a waterfall. “I am particularly interested in unfolding the complex and messy patterns of our species’ impacts on the environment, and our ongoing renegotiation of its value to all forms of life,” Warpinski says. Her works are neither framed nor mounted, just like nature. “What I’m trying to do with the work … in scale, materiality and presence, is to bring it into the realm of the viewer, so that it’s rolling forward to meet you the way that your feet meet the ground when you’re out in the world, as opposed to being a distant observer of a classical landscape from afar.” The Photographer’s Eye is a nonprofit collective of photographers who strive to enrich the community by conducting shows, classes and workshops, by providing a meeting space, and by offering a rental darkroom. Facebook / Instagram
