SAVARTSCENE: PHOTOGRAPHER ANSLEY WEST RIVERS SHOWS THE IMMORTALITY OF WATER
Savannah Now
February 10, 2018
By Kristopher Monroe
Ansley West Rivers takes photographs that seem to convey the essence of the thing she’s photographing and not always the material actuality of the thing. She uses her camera to peer into the spirit world of nature and transmit back an image of what we may not be able to perceive with our corporal eyes.
Rivers’ “Seven Rivers” exhibition, which is currently on view at the newly opened Laney Contemporary Fine Art gallery, is a stunning visual journey that leads viewers to what Rivers calls “a precipice in the history of water.” The photographs aren’t meant to be a documentation, but rather “a depiction of unseen changes occurring on all rivers.” The photographs portray the Colorado, Missouri/Mississippi, Columbia, Rio Grande, Tuolumne, Altamaha, and Hudson rivers in large-scale compositions of staggering beauty and mysterious hues.