Honey Lazar Beautiful and Dangerous Fawick Gallery BWC

Published: January 29, 2009
For full article, visit www.hellomynameisart.com

According to the artist statement, Honey Lazar describes her black and white photographs of misty dark and churning oceans and lakes as symbolizing the wide range of sexual, violent, whimsical and beautiful moments and experiences in her life. Specifics were not revealed but assured that each photograph was a visual manifestation of poignant event.

These photographs, ranging from stoic Adams-esque serene mountainous literal waterscapes to dark abstract frothy texture rich low tide detail images, dig deeper and represent something more universal. When the work hits on all cylinders it conjures up primordial pre-life scenarios where rich carbon matter is transforming and sculpting life. The images that stand out the most are those like #6 or #8 where the dark glossy surfaces of swirling, undulating water circles and washes through the muddy surface. Heat and energy are escaping the exposed seabed causing mud bubbles that bloop and glop. Raw earth that could be thousands of years old remind us of life origins. Other photographs in the show have reflections that become skewed and disjointed when mixed with the water like adding food coloring to dough in a stand mixer. Life and the world is formulating as if adjusting the rabbit ears on old television trying to get a signal. Lazar’s dark and emotional photographs mix misty and magical moments of the purest and most basic elements on earth with raw power, energy and life force of nature and the planet reminding us in a culture of technology and unnatural human existence removed from nature, of our earthly roots.

While Honey Lazar’s photographs may not be groundbreaking in form or content they indeed are thoughtful, rich and poetic. They are formulated by a sincere awe of nature and a wonderment of human emotion, experience and existence. You can see them now through February 13th at the Fawick Gallery in the Kleist Center of the Arts on the campus of Baldwin Wallace College in Berea.

Photography Exhibit Offers Meditation on Water

Published: Friday, February 6, 2009
Reviewed by Fran Heller, Contributing Writer
For full article, visit www.clevelandjewishnews.com

Surging whitecaps in a stormy ocean; the thunderous crescendo of falling water; the soft murmurings of a restful sea.These are some of the sights and sounds summoned in “Beautiful and Dangerous,” an intriguing, somewhat inscrutable exhibit of photographs by Cleveland photographer Honey Lazar.

Lazar’s subject is water in a myriad of guises, from glacial ice and snow and crystalline mountain lakes to the primordial ooze bubbling just below the earth’s surface. Shot in various locations and in different seasons, the 22 photographs on view range from realism to abstraction.

The exhibit is at Baldwin-Wallace College through Feb. 13. Like Mark Rothko’s Color Field paintings, Lazar’s photographs, at once intimate and personal, offer a meditation on water that is visually seductive and psychologically serene. Anyone who has fastened her gaze upon a waterfall, listened to the relentless pounding of the sea, thrilled to the dangers of whitewater in a raft, glided through still waters in a kayak or canoe, or cruised the vast oceans, knows of the restorative powers of our watery world. Lazar’s photographs entice the viewer with similar imaginings.

Using traditional black-and-white film for her subject matter enhances the effect.The most realistic (representational) image is that of a glassy mountain lake, in which the surrounding craggy landscape is mirrored in the water; the artist likens it to an Ansel Adams landscape. In another image, a body of still water looks like endless ripples of desert sand.

Images of calm are interspersed with those of tumult. A sandbar where three currents meet resembles a watery crossroad. In another, a chaotic sea of bubbles suggests the beginning of creation, in the artist’s view.

In one picture, gigantic layers of geological rock dwarf the river below; the image reminded me of the Colorado River. The absence of any explanatory wall text or geographical context leaves the viewer in limbo.

As Lazar’s title suggests, water can be beautiful and it can be dangerous. Her artful approach reveals a keen eye for both. The invitational exhibit was curated by Roberta and David Williamson, both artists. (David is also a professor at Baldwin-Wallace.)

The absence of titles and place was intentional, says Lazar, who wanted the exhibition to be exclusively about the pictures. “They are what you want them to be.”