Jessica Rath

The vast open spaces of Northern New Mexico greatly facilitate the exploration of Nature’s script, Nature’s writing. My photographs try to discover patterns, symbols, glyphs, shapes, etc. which either manifest for a short moment – a cloud in the sky, a reflection on a quiet river – or took a long time to reveal themselves, as in a piece of petrified wood or the growth of lichen on a rock. The meaning may not be obvious right away, but it can be sensed or felt – quite similar to a foreign language. 

Cloud-shadows dancing across the landscape, light changing the colors of rock formations, the subtle nuances of sparse desert vegetation contrasted with lush alpine forests – all these impressions invite me to taste, to observe, to be present to their beauty. The camera becomes a witness, recording and illuminating one particular moment, one special angle.

The flowing patterns thus revealed show an aspect of reality that is easily and often ignored: the seemingly solid facade of a rock or the bark of a tree becomes transparent. Other layers shine through. When I go through the motions of my daily routine I tend to forget that the objective solidity of the outer world has more holes than Swiss cheese... "It's all in me 'ead", as Mr. Tweedie said in 'Chicken Run'...